"Everything is Nature", Practitioner Perspectives on Nature-Based Therapies: A Critical Social Work and Posthuman Analysis

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a heightened awareness of mental health challenges and the need for innovative therapeutic approaches. Nature-based therapies (NBT), which integrate the more-than-human world into the therapeutic process, have garnered interdisciplinary attention for their potential benefits. This study engages with practitioners who implement NBT into their practice, employing qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews and reflexive thematic analysis, to gather their insights and experiences. Findings reveal that practitioners perceive NBT as a powerful modality for enhancing emotional resilience, fostering well-being, and facilitating a deeper connection with the natural world. However, they also identify challenges such as cultural relevance, accessibility, and the need for systemic support. Three broad themes emerged from the interview data: the importance of interconnectedness, healing reciprocity and liberatory wildness. Agential realism, developed by Karen Barad (2007), provides the theoretical lens for this research. Under the ontological umbrella of feminist new materialisms, this critical posthuman framework emphasizes the entanglement of humans and the more-than-human world, challenging traditional separations and advocating for a view of reality as a dynamic process of intra-action. A neologism, Barad’s (2007) concept of ‘intra-action’ challenges the conventional understanding of the idea of ‘interaction’, which assumes that entities or individuals exist as separate, independent beings that come together to interact. Instead, ‘intra-action’ posits that entities emerge through their relationships with one another. In other words, entities do not pre-exist their relations; rather, they are co-constituted through these relations. This concept emphasizes the fluid and dynamic process of becoming, where boundaries between entities are not fixed but continuously enacted (Barad, 2007). Through this lens, NBT practices are considered experiences for connection co-constituted through intra-actions between practitioners, clients, and the natural environment. This thesis contributes to the literature on innovative mental health interventions. It also argues for a move towards a critical posthuman social work model by providing a nuanced understanding of NBT through the lens of agential realism and critical social work theory. It offers recommendations for integrating this approach into broader mental health strategies advocating for a more holistic, and accessible, model of mental health care in the post-pandemic context.