Wild Therapy (second edition)

In today’s Western, industrialised society, ‘wild’ has come to mean dangerous, savage, crazy, out of control. This book celebrates wildness, both in global ecosystems and in the human psyche. Totton argues that embracing unpredictability and boundlessness is vital for our wellbeing and, in these times of environmental crisis, for the survival of humans and other-than-humans. Drawing on psychotherapy, philosophy, ecology, anthropology, futuristic fiction and much other literature, he shows the links between domesticated civilisation and the destruction of the innate balance of ecosystems – including human relationships and psyches. This second edition builds on the first to suggest what a wild civilisation might be like, and how psychotherapy could help create it.

Author Biography

Nick Totton has been a body psychotherapist since 1981, and an ecopsychologist since 2004. He has authored 10 books, including Body Psychotherapy for the 21st Century and Psychotherapy and Politics, and edited several others, including Vital Signs: Psychological responses to ecological crisis (with Mary-Jayne Rust). Nick has developed trainings in two new forms of therapy, embodied-relational therapy and wild therapy, both of which are now being conducted by other trainers. He has a grown-up daughter and two grandchildren, and lives in Cornwall with his partner.