Therapy
Melissa Clews-Hunt
Integrating the calm and restorative presence of the natural world into our therapy conversations can bring peace, perspective, and can illuminate how interconnected we all are. Some people experience anxiety, depression, stress related to work-life balance, or struggles in relationships. Outdoor therapy is an opportunity to slow down, attune to the wisdom that is available to you, and realign with your values.
Outdoor Therapy
Walk together comforted by nature’s peace. Allow the stillness of the forests, the calls of birds, and the river’s gentle presence invite you to attune to your own heart. As we slow we often uncover our deeply felt emotions, both in response to challenges in our lives and our feelings about the earth crisis of our time.
Many people are experiencing profound eco anxiety, or worry related to our future as humans and the vast implications for all life on earth. Many experience guilt, grief, feeling overwhelmed, and not knowing what to do. You are not alone.
Together, we can create space for all that you are holding. That we as humans feel these things shows just how interconnected we all are. We can uncover what place you have in the vast web of all life, what place you occupy in the dismantling of old oppressive ways, and in the bringing about of a new narrative.
Some people experience a meaningful spiritual connection with the natural world. Our work can nurture that connection and your overall love for the earth.
We can invite curiosity into your personal experiences. We can explore how your past impacts your present, and how you can find empowerment to make the choices you want now, and into the future. All while being held, nourished, and supported by Mother Earth. She offers her wisdom if we can learn to listen.
We can remember your sense of belonging as individuals, as communities, and as kin to all of the earth. We can cocreate a new paradigm based on reciprocity, in ways that benefit us as humans and all of the earth. We can bring about ripples of healing inside ourselves, into our relationships, and into all of the earth.
I invite you into this healing space.
NIHB Therapy Available
Individual therapy for Indigenous people in Ontario with status, feel free to connect
Virtual & Phone Therapy
Virtual meetings also can include nature’s healing presence in your therapy journey. As we discuss themes close to your heart, the energy of the earth seems to often move through these conversations. Perhaps it is our ancestors guiding us, perhaps it is air flowing through us, helping inform how we show up in this world. A paradigm shift I have intentionally been supporting is noticing that we are drawing on our intuitive ways of knowing as additional sources of knowledge, to support our intellectual or cognitive ways of knowing. We can lean into your intuition as a guide for this work.
Phone therapy sessions can take place while you sit by a peaceful river or walk on a local trail. During our phone conversations together we can pause to connect with the earth. We can notice how what is happening around you in nature may offer wisdom for what you are personally experiencing, and we can offer back awe and gratitude to the earth for her healing capacity. For some people movement helps to process emotions or move things held in their body.
Couples Therapy
Taking couples therapy outside can facilitate special connective moments together. Some couples find outside therapy can integrate playfulness, space to be more vulnerable, and can enliven creative and meaningful connection. Couples often recall significant moments outside together like watching the sunset, holding hands while walking on a beach, or adventures hiking and exploring together.
Whether outside or meeting virtually, couples therapy is a space for partners to reconnect with each other and to uncover your deep longing for each other. Couples therapy can support your work to repair old wounds and to take active steps into the future together.
Mother Earth is a Powerful Cotherapist
Family Therapy
Taking family therapy outdoors inspires a greater sense of playfulness, creative ways to express each person’s experience in the family, and meaningful moments for connection. Nature sessions can create space to share vulnerability with each other. It can provide an opportunity to put words to how family members are feeling about their future and their climate distress about future generations.
Whether outside or integrating nature through virtual sessions, ecotherapy family sessions can support meaningful connection with each other.
As a family, you can realign the values you want to each embody as individuals, how you want to show up in your family, and what you want to emanate into the world. The process of including nature can invite you to find inspiration and motivation to contribute to healthy relationships within your family and send ripples of healing into the earth.
Adult families are welcome. For children, those under the age of 12 are seen as part of family therapy with the parent(s) involved. For youth ages 12-18, they are welcome to meet with me one-on-one, while parent(s) are encouraged to participate in some of the sessions.
About Melissa Clews-Hunt
MSC, RP, RMFT-SM | THERAPIST & CLINICAL SUPERVISOR
PRONOUNS: SHE/HER
I am a Registered Psychotherapist in Ontario, a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist, and an Approved Supervisor & Supervisor Mentor with the Canadian Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (CAMFT).
In addition to my clinical training and experience, my specialty is including nature in my work. That could be outdoor therapy sessions walking together and pausing to attune to the earth, meeting virtually to address eco anxiety concerns, or having a phone session while walking in a forest. I have been providing clinical supervision to therapists for approximately 20 years. I bring warmth, intelligence, open-mindedness, and creativity into my work. I am an outdoor enthusiast and a proud mom of two children.
Supervision Services
Ecotherapy Clinical Supervision for Therapists
Therapists looking to expand your self reflective practices, to integrate ecotherapy into your clinical work, and to explore an anti oppressive lens. Outdoor clinical supervision sessions are available. Clinical supervision is an individualized way to meet professional accreditation such as with CRPO.
Ecotherapy Group Supervision for Therapists
A collaborative space to cocreate safety and vulnerability together. Explore how to integrate ecotherapy and anti oppressive practice into our clinical work. Be part of virtual or outdoor group clinical supervision. Maximum of 6 therapists attend, and counts toward CRPO group supervision.