Returning the Self to Nature Quotes

“Psychology itself may be narcissistic to the extent that it keeps us focused on our smaller selves rather than on the greater good.”
― Jeanine M. Canty, Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet

“To use a metaphor, it is as if the stream of corporate globalized culture flows toward self-centeredness. If we swim eagerly with the current, we are likely to develop exaggerated and unhealthy forms of narcissism. And we actually have to swim against the current to locate wider, wilder, and more connected versions of ourselves. This is one of the key points of this book: It is the larger culture, our society, that is breeding us to be narcissistic, and this is a problem. Not only does it cause us to be more self-centered, but it also causes us to not care as deeply for the welfare of others. A”
― Jeanine M. Canty, Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet

“The bottom line for these entities is to always increase their profit margins. To do so, there needs to be a constant increase in consumers and consumer appetites. By causing people to feel insecure through various forms of messaging and systematic pressure, corporations increase our cravings for more goods and services—essentially wealth and power. This drive keeps us focused on a very shallow version of ourselves.”
― Jeanine M. Canty, Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet

“From an ecopsychological standpoint, most people within our Western culture are ill because we no longer have the intact relationships with the natural world that our earth-based ancestors did. As a result, we do not have a deep sense of trust in the world or ourselves, so we often have problems developing an authentic sense of self, forming healthy relationships, and discovering our greatest gifts. In our Western, globalized, corporate reality, we dedicate less and less time to genuine relationship and the nurturing of our unique callings, and we emphasize more and more the separate self, individual achievement, wealth, fame, and vanity. Essentially we collectively suffer from having a poorly developed sense of self. It is no surprise that most of us never develop into mature adults, and even as adults, we tend to fixate on our ego needs. We are bred to become narcissistic, and it is an epidemic in our society.”
― Jeanine M. Canty, Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet

“The field of ecopsychology arose over the last few decades with two main goals. One is to make sense of why humans are causing such widespread destruction to the planet. Another is to respond to the environmental movement’s need to adopt a psychological approach rather than always operating from a finger-pointing stance that rests upon political tactics. Ecopsychology recognizes the environmental movement needs psychology and that our psychological well-being is dependent on our relationship with nature.”
― Jeanine M. Canty, Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet

“Ecopsychology attributes our separation from nature to our collective history (shifting from earth-based to industrial and technological societies) and our individual histories—the lack of healthy bonding with nature, including other people, that we received as children. As human beings living within Earth, it is incredibly important to remember that we are animals. Much of our Western paradigm keeps us alienated from this realization, placing humans in a special category separate from nature. Yet we are animals living among a vast community of living beings. When I was diving into the topic of narcissism, I recalled that some of the early ecopsychology writers briefly touched on narcissism as a cause for materialistic overconsumption in US culture. In a groundbreaking essay from 1995, “The All-Consuming Self,” the ecopsychologists Mary E. Gomes and Allen D. Kanner (building on the work of the psychologist Philip Cushman) stated, “American consumer habits reflect both the grandiose and the empty side of narcissism. In terms of the arrogant false self, Americans feel entitled to an endless stream of new consumer goods and services.”[5] Of course, the various things that we buy are sourced from finite materials from Earth and create an irreversible impact on ecological systems. Our vast consumption is essentially destroying Earth, including ourselves; our sense of entitlement to things—our narcissism—is at the heart of this.”
― Jeanine M. Canty, Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet

“Ecopsychology attributes our separation from nature to our collective history (shifting from earth-based to industrial and technological societies) and our individual histories—the lack of healthy bonding with nature, including other people, that we received as children. As human beings living within Earth, it is incredibly important to remember that we are animals. Much of our Western paradigm keeps us alienated from this realization, placing humans in a special category separate from nature. Yet we are animals living among a vast community of living beings.”
― Jeanine M. Canty, Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet

“many Indigenous cultures view a person’s mental illness not as a problem specific to them but rather as a sign that something is amiss within the larger community. Hence mental health is situational—reflective of the history, economics, politics, environmental conditions, and a host of other factors that affect a community. It struck me as odd that the rise of NPD was not viewed as a reflection of the painful structure of our society.”
― Jeanine M. Canty, Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet

“Tragic optimism is a term coined by the Holocaust survivor and existential-humanistic psychologist Viktor Frankl, and it embodies our ability to look for meaning during times of immense collective suffering.[2] It is not wishing for something better to manifest without our effort; rather, it is our ability to stay with the suffering in order to learn its lesson. Waking up to the sobering realities of our ecological crisis and the ways in which our individual and collective narcissism have bred this allows us to embark on a search for not only meaning but healing. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I”
― Jeanine M. Canty, Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet