Människans relation till natur är relaterad till såväl klimatfrågan som vårt eget välmående. Trots det saknas psykologisk forskning som har undersökt hur individer som aktivt engagerar sig i klimatfrågan relaterar till natur. Syftet med föreliggande studie var därför att undersöka relationen till natur hos klimatengagerade stadsbor. Genom interpretativ fenomenologisk metod möjliggjordes en djupanalys av fyra kvalitativa intervjuer. Tre övergripande teman framträdde: natur som kontrast till vardagen, natur som meningsskapande trygghet och natur som föränderlig. Natur var betydelsefull för deltagarna, både i vardagen och i en vidare, existentiell bemärkelse. Relationen framstod som komplex och paradoxal, natur var svårdefinierat och tycktes framförallt vara en upplevelse i det inre och det yttre. Resultatet pekar på vikten av framtida forskning på relationen till natur som tar hänsyn till dess subjektiva och relationella karaktär, undersöker relationen i andra kontexter och studerar natur som ett vidare fenomen.

Human life takes place as part of a global ecosystem, meaning that human mental health is at least partially tied to the health of the planet. Health experts who seek to promote psychological well-being should consider how changes to the broad ecological system may impact their efforts. Given the potential impact of the environment on human well-being, we conducted a meta-analysis to assess the impact of air pollution on subjective well-being. The goal of this project was to outline the current state of the research on these constructs and provide a clear framework for what research is still needed. Nonsignificant relationships were found for six out of seven of the measured pollutants. Overall, these results appear to indicate a nonsignificant negative relationship between our constructs; however, our model had significant heterogeneity which may impact the validity of these findings. Attempts to reduce statistical heterogeneity demonstrated the importance of complex measurement and study design when studying the impact of ecological environments on well-being.

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In Murakami's Norwegian Wood, romance and coming-of-age confront the growing trend of postmodernity that leads to a discontinuity of life becoming more and more common in post-war Japan. As the narrator struggles through a monotonous daily existence, the text gives the reader access to the narrator's struggle for self- and societal identity. In the end, he finds his means of self-acceptance through escape, and his escape is a product of his attempts at negotiating the multiple settings or "scapes" in which he finds himself. The thesis follows the narrator through his navigation of these scapes and seeks to examine the different way that each of these scapes enables him to attempt to negotiate his role in an indifferent and increasingly consumerist society. The Introduction discusses my overview of the project, gives specifics about Murakami's life and critical reception and outlines my particular methodology. In the overview section, I address the cultural and societal tensions and changes that have occurred since the Second World War. Following this section, I provide a brief critical history of Murakami's texts, displaying not only his popularity, but also the multiple disagreements that arise over the Japanese-ness of his work. In my methodology section, I plot my eco-critical, eco-feminist, eco-psychological and deconstructive procedure for dissecting Murakami's text. The subsequent chapters perform a close reading of Murakami's text, outlining the different scapes and their attempts at establishing identity. Within these chapters, I have utilized subheadings as I felt they were needed to mark a change not on theme, but on character and emphasis. My conclusion reasserts my initial argument and further establishes the multiscapes as crucial negotiations, the price and product of which is self-identity.

Background: With current environmental issues of light pollution as a point of departure, this thesis draws a link between Western society’s subjugation of darkness within personal and collective psyches, and the harmful impacts caused by the decline of Natural Darkness (ND) at night, via the use of artificial light. Purpose of Research: Global and societal issues related to light pollution, viewed through a Jungian ecopsychological framework, led to the exploration of reintegrating ND within the human psyche through outdoor, overnight therapeutic practices in wilderness settings. Methods Used: Semi-structured interviews were conducted via Zoom with eight participants who described their memories with ND during overnight therapeutic wilderness experiences. Findings: Participants assigned ND with characteristics including spaciousness, magical, enveloping, and being cocoon-like; and described experiences of reduced boundaries, increased fear, feelings of interconnection, as well as greater connection to the spiritual realm and to unprocessed psychological material. Conclusion: Findings suggest that, for this sample, ND provided conditions for rest, spiritual connection and the processing of psychological material. / Graduate

Despite the wealth of scholarship concerning the origins of religious beliefs, practices, and cultures, there has been little consideration of the impact of ecological landscapes on the development of ancient religions. Although the influence of the natural environment is considered among the variables in explaining the development of various economic, political, and other social systems throughout history, there is a specific gap concerning its impact on the origins of religious systems. The argument which is taken up in this writing is the correlation between agriculturally marginal landscape and the development of monotheism. Specifically that the religions of the ancient Iranians and Israelites were shaped, in part, by the ecological landscapes in which they developed. Using comparative case studies (primarily: Judaism, Zoroastrianism; and including the religions: Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Kikuyu, Maasai, and Lakota) and a dataset of temple sites of the greater Near East through the Iron Age, which are in established archaeological record, digitally mapped in ArcGIS, this argument takes up an examination of the apparent interconnection between mobile societies, monotheism, and a respective lack of temple building culture. Although the primary subjects of the argument are very ancient religious societies, this research is eminently relevant to modern humans because we continue to be affected by natural and built environments. Our modern minds and bodies are shaped, partly, in pragmatic response to spaces in which we develop individually and collectively. This writing is one call for more work to be done to understand the effects of our environments on our minds and ways of thinking. This call for scholarship – for understanding – comes, not accidentally, at a time when the implications of human psychological responses to the environment are particularly unsettling. As the tide of human-caused climate change begins to flood our societies and world, how too might the currents of an unraveling biosphere affect our minds? If the development of a mobile deity and mobile society was the pragmatic response of a people to agriculturally marginal landscapes, what economic, social, and religious constructs might be borne of ecological devastation?

2 ABSTRACT The thesis deals with ethics-relevant thinking and attitudes of workers at animal rescue stations, with the way they perceive nature as a phenomenon, and aims at discovering the various reasons that lead to the workers' choice for their job. Animal rescue stations are an example of protection of nature via voluntary work; thus, discovering the attitudes of workers at these facilities might lead to better understanding of their motivations for this job. The theoretical part of the thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter introduces concepts of environmental ethics focused on ethical behaviour of humans towards animals. The second chapter discusses the approach to nature, presented in the book Contested Natures by Phil Macnaghten and John Urry, together with that of environmental psychology. The last chapter is focused on animal rescue stations themselves and their activities. The practical part of the work presents a research on the topics above that took place at animal rescue stations and was done by interviewing their staff. The data acquired from these interviews are set in a theoretical framework, accordingly elaborated on and further categorized. It can be seen how the statements of the respondents correlate with the concepts presented in the theoretical part. Key words: animal...

"With the Earth in Mind" responds to some of the most cutting-edge research in the field of ecocriticism, which centers on ecological loss and the grief that ensues. Ecocritics argue that ecological objects of loss abound--for instance, species are disappearing and landscapes are becoming increasingly compromised--and yet, such loss is often deemed "ungrievable." While humans regularly grieve human losses, we understand very little about how to genuinely grieve the loss of nonhuman being, natural environments, and ecological processes. My dissertation calls attention to our society's tendency to participate in superficial nature-nostalgia, rather than active and engaged environmental mourning, and ultimately activism. Herein, I investigate how an array of postwar and contemporary American novels represent a complex relationship between environmental degradation and mental illness. Literature, I suggest, is crucial to investigations of this problem because it can reveal the human consequences of ecological loss in a way that is unavailable to political, philosophical, scientific, and even psychological discourse.

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