PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF NATURE EXPERIENCES: AN OUTLINE OF RESEARCH AND THEORY With Special Reference to Transpersonal Psychology

Research settings include a full range of encounters with nature -extended wilderness excursions, hiking in open space, strolling through a city park, gardening, tending a small plot of urban grass or a vacant city lot with its attendant ecosystem, and even watching nature scenes on TV. While different psychological approaches (evolutionary, behavioral, cognitive, psychodynamic, systems, humanistic, and transpersonal) focus on different aspects of the psychological benefits of nature experiences, all have shown that nature experiences are desirable and healthy. This is phenomenal agreement! There is also limited, but suggestive, research that these findings are cross-cultural and universal.