e-Claire

Algore has things to answer for

so, as it turns out, does Mz Edwards

Sarah Edwards worries about the gasoline she burns, the paper towels she throws out, the litter on the beach, water pollution. She worries so much, it literally makes her sick.

“Fear, grief, anger, confusion and depression,” ...neck and shoulder pain, fibromyalgia and fatigue ..."I had so much pathos. It’s so sad,”

...[So she moved from] Santa Monica to a secluded cabin in Los Padres National Forest to help her cope.

Now, she says: “We only drive to the grocery store every three weeks. We have our own source of water. We compost and no longer heat every room on the first floor."

Yeah.  Typical moonbat nutbucket, right?  But it’s becoming a plague on the land—and a very lucrative plague, ‘t seems.

It’s called “eco-therapy” or “eco-psychology.” ...popularized in the early 1990s by social critic Theodore Roszak, is being taught in colleges and universities across the country, including at Harvard Medical School.  ...International Community for Ecopsychology lists more than 100 eco-therapists in the United States.

...The American Psychological Association has no official position on the merits of what it calls an emerging field.

The APA isn’t taking a position until it knows which way the warm winds will blow.

"People break down and cry. They develop obsessive-compulsive behavior. They have nightmares,” [Melissa Pickett, an eco-therapist in Santa Fe, N.M] said. “And these are normally high-functioning people."

Welllll, I’ll begin to disagree with ya there.  Truly “hi-functioning” people discover something that alarms them and they seek information about it in order to create a solution.  Medium- to low-functioning people believe whatever is shouted the loudest or easiest to access.

She pushes her eco-disturbed patients to take shorter showers, turn off lights and computers, consume less, buy less and learn as much as they can about global warming.

And here is where it becomes outright malpractice.  The point of therapeutically addressing an anxiety disorder [qualified as ‘disorder’ when it negatively effects one’s life or well-being] is to re-ground the patient in reality—not to feed the mistaken belief that a shorter shower or twistie bulb will do a dang thing other than to further feed the anxiety.

What these anxiety sufferers lack is perspective; the perspective brought on by facts.

Poor Sarah could live in a mud hut, gather her nuts ‘n’ berries from the forest to cook over a small camp fire, poop in a hole and bathe yearly in a stream and never make one whit of difference.  And on some level she knows that—and that is what is creating her anxiety and her a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=somatization" target="_blank" title="to convert (anxiety) into physical symptoms">somatizations.

What she is really suffering is the experience of thinking that she is able to make a difference in the world—thinking that she does not matter.  An actual therapist could help her discover ways for her to make her life meaningful.  To her.

[Theodore Dalrymple]:

Here is the subliminal influence of the Marxist philosophy surfaces:  the notion that it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

...in my city, in which subsistence is more or less assured, irrespective of conduct.  On the other hand, there are large numbers of people who are devoid of either ambition or interests.  They thus have nothing to fear and nothing to hope… Without religious belief to imbue their existence with transcendental meaning from without, they can provide none for themselves from within.

There’s a lot of lucrative work out there for a moral and sensible therapist.

YET MORE:

Another layer emerges:  I decided to clicky thru to Sarah Edwards’ blog to see how this poor woman is getting along in her little cabin in the woods.  Here’s her bio:

Sarah Anne Edwards, PhD [in Ecopsychology], LCSW [Licensed Clinical Social Worker], is an ecopsychologist and author of the recently released book Middle-Class Lifeboat, Careers and Life Choices for Navigating a Changing Economy and Director of the Pine Mountain Institute, offering online CEU [continuing education units - requisite for licensure for LCSW’s, MFT’s, and RN’s.] programs for helping professionals working to meet psychological, spiritual, and practical needs of those adjusting to manmade environmental changes and their economic consequences.

So that whole stupid article was just an unpaid commercial for her and her little “institute.”

Whadda freakin’ scam artist. 

Here’s her “poor little cabin in the woods.” Completely write-off-able cuz it’s an “Institute.”

I overheard this briefly on Rushbo while weeding this am, which spurred me to look into it this afternoon.  Somebody with a membership oughta email him and let him in on this little scam…

1. There’s a lot of money to be made in this global worming thing.  Just ask algore (one of the principals of “Blood & Gore” ("Generation Investment”, which rakes in cash by selling “carbon offsets")).

   “Eco-therapy” - why didn’t I think of that.

   Here’s another interesting tidbit from the Pine Mountain Institute:
   ---
   CE Self-Study & Online Courses
   Ordering Information
   Self-Study Courses for 6 CE Credits are $69 each (included e-mailed certificate)
   plus $5.00 tax and $5.00 shipping.
   Rush fee: $15 additional per course.
   Paper certificate: $15 additional
   ---------

   For a paltry $454, I could be a certified EcoTherapist in a couple of months.

   Posted by ZZMike  on  04/18/08  at  10:47 AM

2. Just to clarify a few misconceptions, eco-anxiety is not a mental illness. I am not ill and don’t worry about paper towels or trash. As I told the reporter, to worry about the economic consequences of environmental changes is normal and very common now. My own stress, like that of so many others, is a normal reaction many are feeling about rising costs of gasoline, fuel, food, housing, etc.. Adjusting one’s lifestyle, as we have been doing, can be stressful but taking such steps is what prevents anxiety. It is denying people’s concerns that increases it.
   Our goals are to same: to provide information so people can create solutions. That’s what’s needed, that’s what I do at the Institute: Provide information to helping professionals who are interested in assisting their clients to put such concerns in perspective and create solutions.

   Posted by  on  04/18/08  at  11:46 AM

3. Sarah needs to have a talk with my old friend Johnny Walker--or another buddy Jack Daniels.  Besides neither come in six packs so she doesn’t need to worry about some dolphin getting his nose caught in one of those plastic six pack rings and starving to death and when the bottle is empty you can shove used toilet paper in it and keep it as a prize.

   Posted by  on  04/18/08  at  01:22 PM

4. Sarah, stress over “about rising costs of gasoline, fuel, food, housing, etc.. “ is called “normal life.” “Eco-anxiety” would, at most, be classed as a v-code disorder—if not as a fashion statement.  It’s a thought disorder created by insufficient rational [adult] investigation of the facts of the matter.

   You and your Institute are riding the wave of mis- and disinformation provided by the “Global Warming” scammers.  A high-functioning person gathers information [facts] and adjusts his choices—that’s how one “live[s] in harmony with ourselves and the environment around us.” Are you providing your ‘clients’ with the information that: 
   --the science is not all in? 
   --science is not conducted by “consensus” - in fact “consensus” is anathema to the very notion of science? 
   --the preponderance of evidence points away from anthropogenic global climate change? 
   --carbon dioxide is not a predictor of warming but, according to historical record, a following indicator?
   --the largest contributer of CO2 to the atmosphere is wetlands and swamps, followed by sandstone?
   --polar bears are not drowning [nor declining in number] and the ice has returned to both poles?

   I could go on, but you get my point.

   In light of the “environmental changes [that] are affecting our daily lives in terms of rising costs of basics we depend on for our way of life,” have you begun to champion nuclear power or drilling in ANWAR?  Or even private property rights for those farms you’re so worried won’t supply you with your blueberries?  The “rising costs of basics we depend on” are all attached to energy costs, the international market and politics.

   You can’t fool an old hand, girl—you let that article stand because it was a great advert for your “Institute.” And you’ve been called on it.  What you’re doing is unethical; feeding into your clients’ anxiety to make a quick buck.

   Posted by Claire  on  04/19/08  at  06:07 AM

5. BTW, Sarah, I would have commented on your blog, but the comment registration with gloogle stands in my way.

   Your reference to the “deluge” of “outraged and outrageous comments,” of which I could find neither hide nor hair, leads me to believe it would have been dumped, at any rate.

   Posted by Claire  on  04/19/08  at  06:29 AM

6. “Sara you ignorant slut...”

   Posted by  on  04/19/08  at  08:52 PM

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