Preferred Name

Matthew V. Bukowski

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

ORCID

https://orcid.org/ 0000-0001-7971-1873

Date of Graduation

12-18-2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Department of Graduate Psychology

Advisor(s)

Michele Kielty

Debbie C. Sturm

Cara Meixner

Abstract

Recent publications and initiatives within professional counseling indicate a growing interest in the connections between human wellness and the natural world. Despite consistent growth of this trend between the years 2000 and 2021, there has been little dialogue within the profession about the ethical, ideological, and social justice implications of integrating nature therapy with professional counseling and counselor education. This study investigated the views, experiences, and future plans of 10 counselor educators who integrate nature therapy into their professional roles and developed two major themes and 12 subthemes that encapsulate their responses. Participants in the study overall shared a desire to move nature from the margins to the center of professional counseling, and to heal individual and cultural relationships with nature. These data may be useful to counselors, counselor educators, counseling students, and other professionals interested in human relationships with the natural world.

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