Radical Ecopsychology: society, psyche, nature

In May 2025 I received my Advanced Training Certificate in Radical Ecopsychology! This was an intense course led by two amazing teachers, Andy Fisher and Phoenix Smith, and shared with a warm community of kindred learners and seekers. The course was offered online through Pacifica Graduate Institute. (Phoenix Smith, MSW is a nationally recognized leader in Ecotherapy and the founder of a non-profit, The Alliance for Ecotherapy & Social Justice. Andy Fisher, Ph.D., is a major figure in ecopsychology, having tracked and reflected on the development of the field for the last three decades. He is the author of one of the field’s primary texts, Radical Ecopsychology: Psychology in the Service of Life)

Looking up a hill lightly covered with snow to three bare winter trees and two gravestones in Barton Heights Cemeteries.

The last ‘assignment' of the course included a prompt to discuss an ecopsychologically-informed political project we could either imagine or that we were already underway with. This connects to a second "newsworthy" note which is that in the past academic year I have worked as a member of the Richmond Cemetery Collaboratory (RCC) a collection of local groups that is working to restore early African-American cemeteries in the Richmond (Virginia) area. This work is deeply felt by the various groups; not only do we want to restore the overgrown, vanished cemeteries, we want to unearth and reconnect the stories of that buried community to the living community (all of us) for a more accurate history, and inclusion and honoring for the future.

Radical ecopsychology refers to the roots of ecopsychology, with a goal of updating the 'traditional' ecopsychology perspectives and language to include society, acknowledging that we are part of nature and all a part of each other. Rewarding, thought-provoking and inspiration for ongoing creating and discovery.