Depression and the natural world: towards a critical ecology of psychological distress

Researchers have struggled to explain the dramatic increase in diagnoses of ‘depression’ in the industrialised world. This paper argues that psychological distress is likely to arise within an ecological context that is becoming increasingly degraded, and in which the character of selfhood is being redefined to fit an industrialised context. In turn, these redefinitions of selfhood reduce our capacity to address ecological concerns. I argue that it is only possible to recognise the connections between human well-being and ecological health if we identify and challenge the dissociations and repressions on which the ‘business as usual’ of industrial society depends, and that a more embodied conception of the person is fundamental to this recovery of our wholeness. More specifically, I argue that our current reliance on cognition and our corresponding marginalisation of sensing and feeling, in addition to undermining human well-being, may be ecologically catastrophic