Online Zoom Forum: Ecopsychology: The Spiritual, Ecological and Ethical Foundations.
Date: Wednesday 23 September 2026.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Event Description:
Format: There will be six talks, each of 12 minutes, followed by discussion among the speakers and the chair, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
Dr Nadine Andrews:
Bio: Dr Nadine Andrews is a mindfulness, nature-connection and Qi Gong teacher, and regularly gives talks and workshops on climate psychology.
She works part-time in the Scottish Government providing social research and systems thinking expertise in relation to transformational change. https://lifefriendly.earth/
Speakers:
Kimberly Carfore, PhD:
Title: Web of Relations: Spiritual Wisdom and Ethical Responsibility in Ecopsychology.
Description: Ecopsychology invites us to reconsider the relationship between psyche and planet, soil and soul, recognizing that human wellbeing and ecological health are deeply intertwined. Drawing on ecofeminist philosophy, qualitative psychology, environmental science, evolutionary cosmology, and cognitive ethology, this presentation explores the spiritual dimensions of ecopsychology and the ethical responsibilities that arise when we experience ourselves as participants in a living, interconnected world rather than separate observers.
Bio: Kimberly Carfore, PhD is a professor and wilderness guide. She teaches across two departments at the University of San Francisco—Environmental Studies and Theology & Religious Studies—and currently serves as the Faculty Fellow for Integral Ecology. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology for ecojustice and ecofeminism and is the co-chair of the Religion and Ecology unit at the American Academy of Religion.
At USF she designed and teaches Ecopsychology and leads nature immersion courses for universities in the United States and Canada. Dr. Carfore is a Wilderness First Responder (WFR) and is Ecotherapy certified. She is the founder and director of Wild Women, a 501(c)3 nonprofit in the Bay Area, and hosts the podcast, “Return to the Fire with Wild Women.”
Heidi Schreiber-Pan, PhD, LCPC:
Title: Bonded to the Living World: Attachment, Reciprocity, and the More-Than-Human World.
Description: Attachment theory has mapped the architecture of human bonding with remarkable precision — yet it has stopped at the species boundary. This talk asks what happens when we extend its logic outward, into our relationships with the living world.
Drawing on case material from nature-informed therapy practice, Dr. Schreiber-Pan explores how the natural environment can function as a co-regulating presence — a form of secure base that is not metaphorical but neurobiologically real. Central to this extension is reciprocity: not merely as an ethical value, but as a bonding mechanism.
When clients learn to receive from nature and give back to it, something shifts in the therapeutic relationship and in their sense of belonging to life itself. The talk weaves attachment science, clinical narrative, and a spiritually attuned understanding of what it means to be in relationship with the more-than-human world.
Bio: Heidi Schreiber-Pan, PhD, LCPC, is Executive Director of the Center for Nature-Informed Therapy (CNIT) and author of The Ground Beneath Our Work: Nature-Informed Therapy and Care for a World in Need. She trains clinicians, humanitarian workers, and organizations internationally in nature-informed approaches to mental health and has been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Will W. Adams, Ph.D.:
Title: We Are Earth Responding to Earth: Nondual Ethics in an Era of Polycrisis.
Description: Drawing from Zen Buddhism, Christian mysticism, and depth-oriented (eco)psychology, this presentation will explore the core ethical responsibility of contemporary life: namely, cultivating the mutual flourishing of humankind and the rest of nature. We will consider how a basic structure of suffering is generating today’s polycrisis: fear-separation-elevation-devaluation-domination. And we will see how contemplative, nondual, transpersonal spirituality can foster crucially needed healing and transformation. In this process, we can come to appreciate – deeply, experientially, not merely conceptually – that the human species and each individual are inseparable manifestations of the great animate Earth. This includes human wisdom, love/compassion, and creativity, and also human fear, confusion, and destructiveness. Indeed, Earth is ravaging itself through us, and Earth is healing itself through us. It is not clear which influence will prevail, but we do have some say in the matter. The presentation will involve conceptual ideas and a brief experiential exploration.
Bio: Will W. Adams, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Psychology Department at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Over the years Will has served as a psychotherapist, ecopsychologist, and meditation teacher. He also serves as Assistant Zen Teacher in the Sanbo Zen lineage. Will is the author of an ecopsychology/ecospirituality book, A Wild and Sacred Call: Nature-Psyche-Spirit. He is working on a new book entitled Trauma, Love, and Meditation: Contemplative Dimensions of Healing. Will’s life is blessed with a wonderful wife, two marvelous children, two sweet dogs, and a home in the woods.
Paul J. Deal, PhD:
Title: Coming Home to a Sacred Earth: Ecopsychology, Belonging, and Ethical Transformation.
Description: Modern psychological suffering is often framed as an individual problem, yet many people also experience a deeper form of estrangement: a loss of belonging within nature and a larger story of life. Drawing on qualitative research in the psychology of sanctification, this presentation explores how nature becomes more than a setting for stress reduction and is experienced as a sacred source for reconstructing identity, meaning, and ethics. Experiences of awe, interconnection, vulnerability, and immanent transcendence can relocate the self within a living ecological whole. This shift may support emotional regulation and resilience, while also transforming ethical responsibility—from using nature for personal restoration toward reciprocity, restraint, care, and protection.
Bio: Paul J. Deal, PhD, is Professor and Chair of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program at SUNY Plattsburgh, where he has designed and teaches mindfulness-based coursework in ecopsychology and spirituality in clinical practice. His qualitative scholarship explores the spiritual dimensions of ecopsychology--via sanctification theory--and the ways people construct meaning and identity through relationships with the natural world. The seeds of his scholarship were sown in a previous chapter when he worked as a wilderness guide and therapist. He is a Nationally Certified Counselor and Certified Mindfulness Teacher.
Prof Alan Bainbridge:
Title: Ecopsychology - Dreams, Wilderness and the Sacred.
Description: I shall explore the relationship of being human, both ‘in’ and ‘of’ the world, including the central premise suggesting capitalist values and assumptions have initiated a fracture between humans and nature. Dreams are presented to offer the possibility of stepping off from the well-trodden path of existing hegemonic world views to an inner world, where previously censored fantasies and alternative ways of thinking can be ‘lived out’ beyond the repression of a domineering super-ego. I shall also suggest that sacred rituals and intergenerational stories that continue to influence many Indigenous cultures, can still have a significant role to provide meaning for the human / more-than-human relationship.
Bio: Dr Alan Bainbridge is a Professor in Education at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and Visiting Reader in Education and Sustainability at Canterbury Christ Church University. He has an expansive view of education that ranges across ecology, psychology, politics and sustainability. He uses broadly narrative-based research methods to work qualitatively; exploring the development of education professional practice, and the transformative nature of human/more-than-human relationships.
Recent publications include:
Gaitanidis, A., Bainbridge, A. and Mighetto, I. (2025) Wilderness and Ecopsychology: From Anthropocentrism to Ecological Awareness. Routledge: London
Bainbridge, A. and Kemp, N. (Ed.) (2024) Good Education in a Fragile World: The Value of a Collaborative and Contextualised Approach to Sustainability in Higher Education. Routledge: London.
Dr Orsolya Lukács:
Title: Depth Ecopsychology: Bridging Psyche and Earth for a Flourishing Future.
Description: Depth ecopsychology, a framework building on ecopsychology and analytical psychology, offers vital spiritual, psychological, and ethical foundations for confronting contemporary environmental crises. Attributing our alienation from nature to a psychological split from the soul of the world (anima mundi) driven by an overly mechanistic and exploitative mindset, it contends that shifting from a rationalistic worldview to relational engagement can re-enchant our connection to nature and restore our innate sense of wholeness. By embracing a feeling-based relatedness symbolised by the Eros principle, depth ecopsychology helps us move beyond eco-anxiety into active eco-resilience, offering a hopeful, transformative path toward healing both the human psyche and the Earth.
Bio: Orsolya Lukács, PhD is a Lecturer of Psychoanalytic Studies in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex. Centring her recent work on the vital relationship between psyche, nature, and the climate emergency, she authored the chapter ‘Jung, Ecopsychology, and Climate Change’ in The Second Handbook of Jungian Psychology (Routledge, 2026). Her research spans depth-psychological perspectives on mind-body unity, the role of therapeutic practices in societal transformation, and the dialogue between analytical psychology and physics. She also explores the dynamics of scientific creativity, artificial intelligence, virtual realities, and contemporary formulations of the Self.
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
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