F. Robert Wilson, Ph.D.
College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services |
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What is Ecological Psychotherapy?
University of Cincinnati
6 May 2003
Ecological psychotherapy is a model for assessment, problem formulation, and treatment planning which focuses on the development of the personal niche in which the individual can experience interpersonal effectiveness (Dawis, 2000; Willi, 1999). It is a viewpoint rather than a technique, “a way of noticing, of using professional vision to encompass the client's complex reality” (Meyer, 1987, p. 414). Ecological psychotherapy seeks to understand behavior not only as a function of the person or of environmental conditions but as a function of their reciprocal interaction. Thus, “the aim of ecologically oriented therapy is to support individuals in the creation of an environment in which their developmental potential can be realized” (Willi, 1999, p. 6). This approach, consistent with counseling traditions, has general utility in mental health counseling practice and may be particularly useful with traditionally underserved populations (Martin & Schwartz-Kulstad, 2000).
What are the central theoretical assumptions underlying ecological psychotherapy?
The core premise of ecological psychotherapy is that a person's life course centers on niche creation conducted within a relationship field and guided by the person's interactive effectiveness. As corollary, psychopathology involves disruption of niche formation.
A person's life course is one of niche creation. Ecological psychotherapy concentrates on the ecosystem of persons in their environments (Conoley & Haynes, 1992), and on how people create a personal niche within the larger ecosystem by assimilating (negotiating with and changing the environment) and accommodating (changing self in service of creating a better fit for self-within-environment) (Banning, 1989; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Conoley & Haynes, 1992).
Each person develops in a relationship field. The course of an individual's life is co-constructed through the person's interactions with others in the personal niche. As Wachtel (1993) noted, “people live in contexts and our behavior...is always in relation to someone or something” (p. 24). A person acts toward an object, to accommodate or to assimilate, with the hope of gaining a desired end (negotiation). In so doing the person becomes the recipient of the object's reaction (counter-negotiation, feedback).
The person's life course is guided by personal interactive effectiveness. One experiences oneself at the boundary between self and niche through the effect of one's successive, recursive attempts to shape one's niche and the niche's pressure for one to adapt. “Those who are successfully effective demonstrate to themselves and others that they are able to utilize their environment...[that they] understand what their environment has to offer and feel confident in their relationship to it (Willi, 1999, p. 14). Health is thus a function of interactive effectiveness and illness, a function and a consequence of ineffective interaction.
Psychopathology involves disruption of niche creation. Psychological health is construed as individual interactive effectiveness within one's personal niche. The highest of human needs is that of self-actualization (Maslow, 1954) and humans strive to create a niche, or personal world, within the surrounding environment which will promote self-actualization (Willi, 1999). So important is the notion of the personal niche to self-actualization and health that Willi postulated: “Every form of psychological disorder involves a disruption in the formation of the personal niche” (p. 25).
What is theoretical grounding for ecological psychotherapy?
Ecological psychotherapy's emphasis on niche development and the co-creative, coevolutive aspects of relationships is rooted in the dialogical philosophy of Martin Buber (1947); the ecology of human development detailed by Bronfenbrenner (1979); the psychology of personal constructs advanced by Kelly (1955); the person-in-environment focus of Lewin (1936); and the interpersonal focus of Sullivan (1953), Weissman, Markowitz, and Klerman (2000), Wilfley, MacKenzie, Welch, Ayres, and Weissman (2000), and Villeneuve (2001).
How does ecological psychotherapy view assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning?
Ecological psychotherapy strives to understand behavior not only as a function of the person, as have a host of intrapersonal schools including the psychoanalytic, person centered, and cognitive-behavioral schools, or of environmental conditions, as have behavioral theorists, but as a function of their reciprocal interaction within nested social systems.
Ecological assessment. The ecological view of assessment suggests that systematic and formal assessment be made of environmental and interactive factors as well as historically valued intrapersonal factors. It notices deficits and excesses but values assets and strengths. The traditional global assessment of functioning is supplemented by global assessments of environmental nurturance and interpersonal and co-evolutionary relations.
Ecological problem formulation. Ecological problem formulation recognizes the necessity of accurate diagnosis of individual physical and psychological problems and disorders but urges broader recognition of the separate and interwoven contributions of intrapersonal, environmental, and systemic interactive factors. It gives explicit attention to how intrapsychic and environmental deficits and excesses can each influence the other and the effectiveness of an individual's attempts at assimilation and accommodation.
Ecological treatment planning. Ecological treatment planning entails crafting a plan for facilitating the client's use of personal strength to achieve a better fit within his or her ecological niche. The treatment approach is selected to fit the presumed origin of the client's difficulties and the resultant level of distress and impairment experienced by the client (c.f. McHugh, 2002). With individuals who have the capacity to form coevolutive relationships, Ecological Brief Therapy is recommended. For individuals with intractable problems and limited coevoloutive capacity, Ecological Supportive Therapy is viewed as a more appropriate approach.
Ecological Brief Therapy. Individuals who have the capacity to form coevolutive relationships (e.g., individuals with problems originating in the biological substrata, from dysregulated drive expression, or from the character of the client's lived experience) may profit from ecological brief therapy, a treatment approach which facilitates increase in the reciprocity of the coevolutive process. Utilizing a written focus formulation, or contract, which describes both the conditions that make the problem worse and the resources available for overcoming the problem, ecological brief therapy helps individuals, couples, and families to master eminent developmental steps within their coevolutive relationships (Willi, 1999).
Ecological Supportive Therapy. Individuals whose capacity to form coevolutive relationships is severely impaired (e.g., individuals with limited cognitive capacity or severe personality disorders) may derive more benefit from ecological supportive therapy which emphasizes development of differentiated relationship niches and improvement of interactive effectiveness within the personal niche. Rather than the short term, intensive work which characterizes ecological brief therapy, ecological supportive therapy is cast as low frequency, long term therapy in which therapists help clients examine probable outcomes for behavioral options with an eye to creating a regulating niche in which they can maintain a sustaining level of interactive effectiveness (Willi, 1999) .
How does ecological psychotherapy meld with other therapies?
The philosophical orientation of ecological psychotherapy can supplement other forms of psychotherapy. Applying ecological psychotherapeutic principles to the cognitive therapies enriches their emphasis on inadequate information processing by raising awareness of the qualities of the niche in which the client is trying to find fit and the ways in which the client's lack of interactive effectiveness may result in failure to profit from nutrients available within the niche. Ecological psychotherapeutic principles also enrich the constructivist, cybernetic view of systemic family therapy increasing awareness of relationship motivations which led to the original selection of the partner with whom the client is now experiencing interactive ineffectiveness and coevolutionary failure.
References
Banning, J. H. (1989, 1989). Ecotherapy: A life space application of the ecological perspective . Retrieved October 8, 2001, from http:\\isu.indstate.edu/wbarratt/dragon/ce/v7n3.htm
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Buber, M. (1947). Between man and man . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Conoley, J. C., & Haynes, G. (1992). An ecological approach to intervention. In R. C. D'Amato & B. A. Rothisberg (Eds.), Psychological perspective on intervention: A case study approach for prescription to change . New York: Longman.
Dawis, R. V. (Ed.). (2000). The person-environment tradition in counseling psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kelly, G. A. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs . New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.
Lewin, K. (1936). Principles of topological psychology . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Martin, W. E., & Schwartz-Kulstad, J. L. (Eds.). (2000). Person-environment psychology and mental health . MahWah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Pub.
Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality . New York: Harper & Row.
McHugh, P. (2002). Classifying psychiatric disorders: An alternative approach, Harvard Mental Health Letter (Vol. 19, pp. 7-8).
Meyer, C. H. (1987). Direct practice in social work: Overview. In A. Minahan (Ed.), Encyclopedia of social work: Vol I (18th ed.) (pp. 409-422). Silver Spring, MD: National Association of Social Workers.
Sullivan, H. S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry . New York: Norton.
Villeneuve, C. (2001). Emphasizing the interpersonal in psychotherapy: Families and groups in the era of cost containment . Philladelphia, PA: Brunner-Routledge.
Wachtel, P. L. (1993). Therapeutic communication: Principles and effective practice. New York: The Guilford Press.
Weissman, M. M., Markowitz, J. C., & Klerman, G. L. (2000). Comprehensive guide to Interpersonal Psychotherapy . New York: Basic Books.
Wilfley, D. E., MacKenzie, K.R., Welch, R.R., Ayres, V.E., & Weissman, M.M. (2000). Interpersonal psychotherapy for group . New York: Basic Books.
Willi, J. (1999). Ecological psychotherapy . Seattle, WA: Hogrefe & Huber.
