Where to turn in anxious and febrile times? One answer is to nature, or the ‘non-human living world’, which, despite the ravages inflicted on it by humans, continues to offer solace and hope to many. Such, at least, is a possibility linking these fine but quite different books.
Lucy Jones’s starting point in Losing Eden is her own struggle with depression and addiction a few years back. She writes that three of the things that helped her recover — psychiatry, psychotherapy and the support of others — were straight-forward, but the fourth was more mysterious: a greater connection with the natural world. Surprised and interested, she embarked on investigating the power of nature to heal.
The result is a thorough, well-balanced report, even if it covers familiar ground. Carl Jung certainly recognised the importance of connecting with nature. Better health outcomes were apparent in the public housing projects built in Chicago in the 1960s with green spaces and trees than in those without.
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