Portland Hiking Therapy

Announcing: A winter community therapy group to support connection, energy, and mood. Winters in Oregon are especially dreary, and it’s common for the dark, short, rainy days to impact our energy, social connectedness, and mood. Join us as we gather weekly in community and solidarity, online during the lunch hour- bring your food! We will check in, learn about behavior activation to support mood and energy levels, and navigate the rainy winter months alongside one another.

I am honored to share my work in the New York Times today, alongside so many other therapists who are practicing outdoors and expanding therapy in transformational ways! Check it out:

Therapists Trade the Couch for the Great Outdoors (Gift Article) Mental health practitioners are hiking, camping and braving the elements with their clients — all in an effort to help them connect with the Earth, and with themselves.

ATTACHMENT TO PLACE: Environmental Psychologists have studied a phenomenon that we have all experienced, called an “attachment to place”; This is where we develop a trusting, meaningful relationship with a place that may go as deep to bring us a sense of security, pride, self and connection. We can get attached to all types of different places- our home, a childhood park, a treehouse, or a place of cultural relevance.

Our sense of attachment is formed through experiences at that place.

What can an attachment to a place offer to us? A sense of connectedness, and a sense of adventure and exploration, and well-being. We may also develop a “place identity”- where we associate ourselves with social or environmental identities- our ways of making meaning and our beliefs and values all become intertwined with our experiences and connections to a place. Where are your place attachments?