Exploring Ecotherapy as a Pathway to Healing and Restoration

Our relationship with nature is not incidental—it is ancestral, spiritual, and deeply woven into who we are. Yet for many people, that relationship has been disrupted by colonization, urbanization, environmental racism, and the demands of survival. Ecotherapy is the intentional practice of reclaiming it. Grounded in both empirical research and multicultural wisdom traditions, ecotherapy positions nature not as a backdrop or a tool, but as a relational presence—one that holds memory, offers refuge, and supports healing, identity, and belonging.

This course is designed for a wide range of participants: licensed clinicians, social workers, counselors, nurses, educators, community health workers, coaches, and practitioners across helping disciplines who are curious about weaving nature-based approaches into their work. It is equally relevant for lifelong learners who are drawn to ecotherapy for their own healing, restoration, and personal growth. Whether you work with individuals, groups, or communities—or are simply on your own journey of reconnection—this course offers culturally grounded, evidence-informed tools and frameworks you can use right away.

Your instructor, Dr. Tiffany A. Wright, DSW, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker, ecotherapist, and scholar-practitioner whose work sits at the intersection of ecopsychology, eco-social work, African-centered practice, and community-based healing. Her doctoral research at Morgan State University examined how Black millennial women in urban environments experience identity, belonging, and healing through relationships with nature—centering ancestral wisdom, intergenerational knowledge, and culturally grounded ecological practices. Dr. Wright brings both academic rigor and lived expertise to this course, drawing on ecowomanist and African-centered social work frameworks alongside Western ecopsychological theory to offer a genuinely integrative learning experience.

This course does not treat ecotherapy as something new to be introduced. Instead, it invites participants to recognize, name, and deepen ecological relationships that may already exist—embedded in everyday practices, family traditions, spiritual rituals, and cultural memory. The teaching approach centers storytelling, reflection, and experiential learning alongside theory and research, honoring the understanding that healing emerges not only from exposure to nature, but from meaning-making, cultural framing, and relational awareness.

Topics covered in this course include: the historical and cultural origins of ecotherapy across Western and non-Western traditions, including African, Asian, Mestizo, and Indigenous frameworks; the theoretical foundations of ecopsychology and eco-social work; the biophilia hypothesis and empirical evidence for nature-based interventions; the concepts of ecomemory, ecotrauma, ecogrief, and ecospirituality; the intersections of environmental racism, urban ecology, and mental health equity; forms of ecotherapy including gardening, animal-assisted therapy, nature walks, botany, mindfulness, meditation, journaling, sound baths, and sensory-based practices; and approaches for individual, group, community, in-person, and virtual implementation.

Key Takeaways:

• Ecotherapy as reclamation: Participants will understand ecotherapy not as a novel clinical technique, but as a culturally grounded process of reclaiming ancestral relationships with the natural world—one that already lives within communities, practices, and memory.
• Evidence-based and justice-informed: Participants will be able to assess the empirical research on nature-based interventions alongside frameworks that address environmental racism, urban ecology, and healing equity—applying both to their practice or personal journey.
• Skill-ready and immediately applicable: Participants will leave with six facilitated ecotherapy activities and a broadened definition of nature-based practice they can implement right away - across individual, group, community, in-person, and virtual contexts.

Why this course?

• Relevant across roles, disciplines, and lived experience: Whether you are a licensed practitioner, a community helper, an educator, or someone on your own healing journey, ecotherapy offers accessible, culturally responsive tools that honor who you are and the communities you serve.
• Scholarship rooted in lived experience and original research: Dr. Wright's expertise is grounded in doctoral-level original research centering Black women's voices and urban communities, as well as years of clinical and community-based ecotherapy practice—bringing authenticity, rigor, and cultural depth to every learning objective.
• Delivered by a trusted provider: The Telehealth Certification Institute is committed to offering high-quality, accessible continuing education that expands competency and supports ethical, evidence-informed practice across disciplines.

Learning Objectives:

• Define ecotherapy—including its scope, core concepts, and related modalities - and distinguish it from related terms such as nature-based interventions, ecopsychology, and eco-social work.
• Explain the dual origins of ecotherapy as both an ancestral, cross-cultural healing practice rooted in African, Indigenous, Asian, and Mestizo traditions and a formalized Western therapeutic framework.
• Discuss how ecotherapy is commonly experienced in everyday life - through practices such as plant care, cooking, water rituals, gardening, and sensory engagement with the natural world - without being named or contextualized as such.
• Assess the empirical evidence supporting nature-based interventions, including the biophilia hypothesis, and apply relevant findings to inform practice decisions across formal and informal helping contexts.
• Demonstrate at least six ecotherapy activities that can be facilitated indoors or outdoors, adapting each for individual, group, community, in-person, and virtual settings.
• Design a culturally responsive inquiry process for exploring a person’s or community’s existing relationships with nature—including personal, familial, spiritual, and ancestral connections - as a foundation for ecotherapy engagement.

Nature has always been a site of healing, memory, and return—and this course is an invitation to come back to it. Whether you are deepening your professional practice, expanding your toolkit, or simply following a personal calling toward restoration, ecotherapy offers something that belongs to all of us. Register today and take the first step toward reclaiming, naming, and sharing the healing power of the natural world.