Autumn Newsletter 2020

As we approach the end of 2020 draws to a close, and the natural world falls asleep, the colder weather invites us to pause. It is worth reflecting on just how different this year has been from any previous year. And for many of us here in Ireland, the real hero of this pandemic has been Ireland herself! Here, we are most fortunate to have beautiful nature accessible to most if not all of us meaning that nature has been an unsung hero of this pandemic, a therapist to many and a source of hope to those in need of it.

This healing and calming power of the natural world is, genuinely, an indispensable weapon against the anxiety, frustration and general low mood that comes with this combination of lockdowns and cold weather. Nature’s ability to encourage emotional regulation and to facilitate essential benefits for our well-being is why we do what we do here at the EEAI. At this critical period of our development, we, at the EEAI, are really hoping and trying to offer the necessary warmth and light of hope through our work.

As we assert on our website, our aims as an association are:

1.  To connect people who might need some help with practitioners of ecopsychology and ecotherapy who can offer that help and also to connect these practitioners with each other
2. To support such practitioners, and anyone else interested, through access to resources, research and a platform
3. To promote such practitioners and the disciplines of ecopsychology and ecotherapy in any way we can

Read on to know how we are doing this and how you can help.

We feel that all of the above are all goals that we can much better achieve with our new website! Yes, that’s correct, we have developed and are now launching a brand new website which is, hopefully, going to be with us for a very long time. There are still some things to be added to it but all of the necessary functionality is there. Please feel free to hop on and have a poke around! Our hope is that through growing our number of followers through our website and various social media pages, we can begin to really offer a lot of value to our members and professional members through connection, resources and promotion. Click here to see what’s what!

• Secretary: Catherine Rountree, Ruairi Osborne, Therese O’Driscoll
• Ethics: Robbie Breadon
• Research: Aidan Ring, Deborah Harvey, Helena Gleeson
• Membership: Joanne Hanrahan, Robert Lewis
• Newsletter: Aidan Ring, Helena Gleeson
• Webmaster: Aidan Ring, Robert Lewis
• Social Media: Aidan Ring, Helena Gleeson
• Finance: Ruairi Osborne, Robert Lewis
• Professional Support: Robbie Breadon, Therese O’Driscoll

As our team grows, we can do more for you, our members. Conversely, we are also very keen to work with you and there are many more positions up for grabs! We are now putting a call out to any and all like-minded people to help nurture our young and enthusiastic organisation by getting involved in any of the following areas:

• Ethics
• Research
• Membership
• Newsletter Production
• Website Management
• Social Media
• Finance
• Professional Support

If any of the areas listed here are something you are interested in helping out with, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at info@eeai.ie!

If you have no experience with any of these things but still want to get involved, we would love to hear from you.

We sincerely hope that our dear readers are finding ways to cope with the unprecendented circumstances in which our species finds itself. On this note, we are very excited to continue our work in the hopes that we can be of as great a service as possible to connect, support and promote our members and professional members and their excellent and valuable work. As a way, feedback on how we are doing with this is welcome!