Forest Therapy
“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves”
Mary Oliver
Definition
The definition of Forest Therapy in the Scandinavian context is a professional practise, based on Forest Bathing, but with additional academic and methodological guide competency and skill. The emphases of Forest Therapy is on informed, guided adaptions, made before and during the Forest Therapy experience, to better suite people or populations with specific needs. The guided Forest Therapy walk may therefore be perceived as slightly different from a Forest Bathing walk.
Therapy
The term Forest Therapy in Scandinavia, has recently been processed due to the word “therapy”, most often associated with clinical treatment and expertise. We therefore make a specific effort to state the emphases on the Human-Nature connectedness as the therapeutic factor, and the guide as facilitator.
The Guide training
The training is open to a variety of professions. To offer specificity, there are trainings for the non-clinician and another with a clinical framework. Both share the method development of the Certified Forest Bathing Guide training, adding a second level of manualised methodology; named “Certified Forest Therapy Guide – Skills and Applications for special needs“.The guide training is thus a Continous Professional Development (CPD). The manual offers a science based, theoretical and methodological, second level foundation, informed by psychology, salutogenic interventions and health supporting guidelines. The purpose of the guide training and skills development is to make Forest Bathing and Nature Connection accessible to a wider population, in particular those with more extensive health care challenges.
