SPYROS GERAVELIS LANDSCAPE DESIGN

GARDEN AND PSYCHOTHERAPY IN THE WEST AND THE EAST​

         In a study of 20,000, people the European Centre for Environment & Human Health at the University of Exeter, it was found that people who spent two hours a week in green spaces — local parks or other natural environments, either all at once or spaced over several visits — were substantially more likely to report good health and psychological well-being than those who don’t. Two hours was a hard boundary: The study showed there were no benefits for people who didn’t meet that threshold.

The effects were robust, cutting across different occupations, ethnic groups, people from rich and poor areas, and people with chronic illnesses and disabilities.

           "Every time we touch nature, we are cleansed. People who have been tainted by excessive civilization take a walk in the forest or a bath in the sea. The bonds are cast off and they allow nature to touch them. This can happen from within or from the outside. Walking in the forest or lying on the grass, bathing in the sea is an entry into the unconscious from the outside. By immersing in ourselves through dreams, we touch nature from the inside. And this is the same thing; things are corrected and fall into their proper place."

Carl Jung, "Dream Analysis. Notes on a Lecture 1928-1930."

        The Western person has lost touch with both nature and their inner world. We live in a man-made, artificial environment, safe and comfortable, avoiding any physical discomfort, even exiling the slightest physical pain. We sit only in chairs and sofas, sleep in comfortable beds, and move only with mechanical means. We have become disabled and dependent even for the simplest act, like sitting and resting. Most of us even struggle to sit comfortably on the ground because our bodies have forgotten how, losing the flexibility with which we are born. Our connection to nature (and our own nature) has become uncomfortable or even completely impossible.

At the same time, our perception of the world is monopolized by the most superficial level of the self, rational thought, which operates in terms of language, ignoring the unfathomable depth of our inner world, although it is this world that truly determines our existence. Thus, we have renounced any perspective beyond the material, rationally manageable dimension of the world. Jung says that the four elements most repressed by the Judeo-Christian world are nature, animals, creative imagination, and the primal side of ourselves (which is wrongly identified only with instinct and sexuality). We have also stripped the world of its spiritual dimension; nature is merely an object to be exploited. The Freudian school has only recently begun to address the impact of distancing from nature on the psyche. Analytical analysts, however, have been dealing with this issue for a long time.

Jung speaks of the inner world—the unconscious—that is ignored in the rush to focus solely on the conscious, rational mind. The unconscious, in his view, is where the core of the self lies, and when we disconnect from it, we risk suffering from neuroses and a lack of  fulfillment. The West’s over-reliance on rational thought and technological progress results in a "narrowing" of perception, leaving little room for the mysteries and potentialities that the unconscious can offer.

Therefore, we are ultimately cut off from the whole of the world in its entirety, both within and without. Immersion in nature, the therapeutic diffusion into the "great outside," is no longer a choice for most. The same applies to immersion in our inner world. Especially today, we cannot even stay alone with ourselves for a few minutes! Even during simple acts like waiting in a line, we automatically reach for our phones, addicted to a superficial distraction that is usually without any substance; let alone dedicating time to meaningful introspection. Thus, just like with the outer world, we have erased any spiritual dimension from our inner world and lost our inner life, opening the way to all kinds of neuroses.

The psychotherapeutic response of the Western person to this tragic alienation is either religious practices, which invest in a spiritual dimension, or psychotherapy, which aims to analyze the inner self and bring unconscious elements to the surface, introducing them into the framework of conscious reactions. This is how nature from within is approached in the West.

The approach to nature from the outside, on the other hand, requires direct and regular experience, which demands sacrificing comfort, risking safety, or even traveling (since the overwhelming majority lives in large cities), something that is extremely difficult or impossible for most.

        And here comes the garden, which I like to call a "gateway." The garden is made by man, using elements from nature. It has one foot in both worlds. The garden embodies a balance between control and natural spontaneity. It is nature domesticated. Here, the contact with nature is easy; we do not need to sacrifice our comfort or risk our safety, and it is also accessible in our everyday lives. In this sense, it is a gateway, an accessible introduction to reconnecting with the world.

The gardens of the West, after the vegetable and herb gardens of the medieval period, starting with the gardens of the Renaissance, were initially geometric, with nature strictly controlled, geometrically and symmetrically designed, obeying the Enlightenment's demand for a rational reading of the world and, through this, mastery over nature. Later, with the rise of Romanticism in Europe, the English garden appeared—free and more natural—creating landscapes that could be  natural and often with references to mythology. Thus, a spiritual dimension returned to the garden.

           In the East, things are different. The person of the East, and especially in Japan and China, whose practices I have personally explored, has not lost touch with either their inner world or the spiritual dimension of nature. However, they approach it in a completely different way. The Chinese Taoist or the Japanese Shinto - Buddhist encounters their deep cosmic unconscious in a purely experiential and immediate way, without any analysis or mediation by their superficial consciousness. A Taoist teacher says, "Those who know do not speak, and those who speak do not know." The Tao (meaning "way") is the method for identification with the universe that exists both within and outside of us, an experience that cannot be described with words; it is something dramatically greater than what our rational consciousness can grasp.

At the same time, nature for the person of the East is imbued with sacredness and filled with spiritual entities—not romantic mythological remnants, but real beings as tangible as you or me. Trees, rocks, and springs have their “kami”, spirits of the ancient animistic Shinto religion of Japan, which has been universally adopted by Buddhism (which came later from China). I was struck in Japan that every Buddhist temple also had a Shinto shrine in its gardens. Similarly, around the world, there have always been nymphs, satyrs, fairies, mermaids—spirits of nature that have always existed for humans across the planet until recently.

     Let us note here that in modern Westernized Japan, “forest bathing” is a standard preventive medicine practice. The Japanese government spends 4.000.000$ annually, since 2003, on research for forest bathing. Westernization has taken a heavy toll on the Japanese psyche. The Japanese word for stress is… “Stress”. So the people of Japan are trying to find a new way back to their primordial relationship with nature.

“Forest bathing in Japan involves cultivating your senses to open them to the woods. It’s not about wilderness. It’s about the nature/civilization hybrid the Japanese have cultivated for thousands of years”.      Florence Williams : The nature fix.

         The modern Western person approaches nature by killing and dissecting it to analyze and exploit it. The Easterner approaches it with respect, admiring it without touching it, investing it with sacredness. This is also somewhat true for the European Romantic, who, as Blake says, "sees the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower."

             Thus, they also approach their gardens. The Japanese garden is not merely a replica or miniature of a natural landscape, or of a painting, as often described by Europeans. It is a "condensation" of nature, and the creation of a garden, as well as the experience of being in it, is a profoundly spiritual act. I would even say religious, though Taoism, Shinto, and Buddhism are not exactly religions in the way we define religion in the West.

Therefore, for the person of the East, the garden has been, since ancient times, a space for spiritual elevation and has always been of particular importance. Let us not forget that the oldest book on landscape architecture, with instructions on how to construct gardens, is the Japanese “sakuteiki”, written a thousand years ago. The focus of “sakuteiki”, is not on technical or aesthetic elements only, but primarily on the allegorical and spiritual aspects of the garden.

"Nature has lost its sacredness, but the spirit is uncertain and unsatisfied. Therefore, any real treatment of neurosis must awaken both spirit and nature to a new life."

Psychoanalyst Joseph Henderson  

         And the way to experience the psychotherapeutic dimension of the garden as a "gateway" is to approach it with calmness and respect, to invest its natural elements with some "sacredness," and to let nature enter within. It is an experience that cannot be conquered with conscious action but must "happen" to you, like the psychoanalytic revelation or the religious experience of "enlightenment," without the intervention of conscious will. Psychotherapy, in this context, is not just about analysis and understanding—it is about experiencing and integrating the unconscious and the spiritual dimensions of existence. The garden as a “gateway”, as a therapeutic space, offers a way to experience that process directly and holistically, bridging the gap between the rational, conscious self and the deeper, unconscious or spiritual self.