Outdoor Therapy: Benefits, Mechanisms and Principles for Activating Health, Wellbeing, and Healing in Nature

Outdoor environmental educators support students’ learning, growth and development. Whether or not they intend to, they also support students’ physical, mental and social health. This chapter helps the reader understand how nature, natural environments, and human-nature relationships can be used in intentional ways to enhance the health, wellbeing and healing of staff and students. While Outdoor therapy differs from Outdoor Environmental Education in terms of the intended outcomes for participants, both are well placed to support the health of the whole person, and both can draw on the benefits of nature to enhance the wellbeing of staff and students. This chapter provides an overview of the benefits of nature contact for human health, key elements at work within nature-based health practices, and a discussion on key mechanisms of change, likely causal pathways and outcomes. A set of Outdoor therapy practice principles offers guidance for enhancing health and psychological safety within OEE experiences.