Are you a therapist who has thought about or experimented with working clinically outdoors, or has interest in learning more about ecotherapy and how it works? Do you find wholeness and healing for yourself when you are connected to nature? Between the pandemic and climate change becoming more urgently noticeable, are you noticing clients feeling lonelier and more disconnected than ever? This workshop addresses an increasing need for mental health care to expand beyond the walls of the therapy office to effectively care for our clients as whole people.

This workshop is designed for therapists and students (psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, or professional counselors) to improve their competency moving their therapy sessions outdoors from an ecotherapy perspective. A portion of this workshop will also directly address ethical issues and barriers to bringing therapy sessions outdoors and will include several experiential ecotherapy-based interventions to utilize with clients.

This workshop is being held entirely outdoors on private land at RecuperAcres. This workshop will involve experiential participation in movement-based activities and will include light hiking spread throughout the day. Limited accommodations are available for moving from location to location on the property for those who need it. All registered participants will receive more detailed directions to RecuperAcres and instructions on what to bring to the workshop. RecuperAcres itself is a safe and welcoming outdoor space for people of all identities and backgrounds, permitted by Carver County as a private mental health park.

Cost: $175

Limited spots available

Discounted rate for students and BIPOC clinicians available at check out

5 CEUs (1.5 hours spent on ethics) This workshop has been approved by the MFT board for 5 CEUs, and 1.5 hours of ethics training. Other professions will need to self-submit for CEU credit.

The overall goal of this workshop is for participants to be introduced to the concept of ecotherapy and to further an understanding of the benefits to clients when this nature-based lens is employed in clinical mental health settings.

Objectives include:

• Developing a working definition of ecotherapy and the many different forms it can take (animal assisted therapy, horticulture therapy, somatic ecotherapy, etc.) as well as the two different levels of working (level one and two). This also includes conceptualizing ecotherapy as a systemic and relational lens, leading to systemic interventions and outcomes.

• Increasing awareness of the benefits of ecotherapy on mental health outcomes.

• Developing a brief understanding of ethics-based client considerations for this work and when/when not to utilize this approach with a wide variety of clients and presenting concerns. This includes a discussion of assessment questions for clients and preparing them for an outdoor session. This also includes exploring the ecological self-of the therapist and identifying therapist readiness for nature-based work.

• This workshop will include specific interventions to utilize both indoors and outdoors with clients, including discussion and experiential practice of interventions as well as identification of client populations who could benefit from each intervention.

***weather backup date of June 14th***

This workshop will be facilitated by Becky Krenz-Roe, MA, LMFT. Becky has 17 years of experience practicing both indoor and outdoor ecotherapy. Her training began with her master’s level internship in an outdoor education center in the Appalachian Mountains, continuing with wilderness therapy and self-study. She completed her level 1 and 2 certificates with the Earthbody Institute in ecotherapy and has been actively training for the last 4 years in dance/movement therapy as she weaves this embodied approach into her ecotherapy work.