• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

John E. Mack Institute

Exploring the Frontiers of Human Experience

  • About Us
    • John E. Mack, MD
    • Directors
    • Advisors
    • Executive Team
    • Letter from the Director
    • JEMI At a Glance
    • Statement of Purpose
  • Projects
    • Archives of the Impossible
    • Art of the Impossible
    • JEMI Archives Digitization
  • News & Media
    • Disclosure
    • Latest News
    • Archives
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • For Experiencers
    • Mental Health Support
    • Monthly Dialogues
    • Other Resources
  • The Phenomenon
    • Abduction Encounters
    • Consciousness & the Nature of Reality
    • Ontological Shock
    • Phenomenology
    • Recommended Reading & Viewing
    • Weird Physics & Non-linear Time
  • Library
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Ecopsychology Institute

Admin · January 6, 1987 ·

This project has been completed

Directed by Sarah A. Conn, Ph.D.

Mission Statement: The Ecopsychology Institute’s mission is to explore the connection between human health and the health of the Earth, focusing on the development of mutually sustaining relationships within and among humans and the environment.
The Ecopsychology Institute has been working since 1987 to promote ecological consciousness and identity among professionals in a variety of diverse fields.

Ecopsychology is a field which recognizes that human sanity must include sustainable and mutually­-enhancing relations with the natural world as well as within the human community. Ecopsychology attempts to bridge psychology and ecology, to learn again to see the needs of the person and the needs of the earth as interrelated and interdependent.

“There is no such thing as ‘individual’ health separate from the systems within which the individual exists,” explains Sarah A. Conn, Ph.D., founder and director of the Ecopsychology Institute. (Pioneers of ecopsychology theory include David Abram, Sarah Conn, James Hillman, Joanna Macy, Bill Plotkin, Rosemary Randall, Laura Sewell, and Paul Shepard.)

One of the longest-standing programs of the organization, it began as semester course at Harvard for health care and related professionals. That course continues to this day, exploring health care theory and practice in the larger context, based on the notion that human health and the health of the Earth are inseparable – viewing “symptoms” as cultural and ecological “signals” and potential invitations to transform worldview and identity.

The work has grown to include training programs for professionals in other fields, including educators, architects, writers, environmental engineers and artists.

At a pilot training held at the Boston Society of Architects building in downtown Boston in June 2001, more than a dozen architects met for a day-long session during which the Institute trainers introduced the basic principles of ecopsychology and the levels of ecological intelligence. The participants then worked on synthesizing what they had learned and applying it to a case example. The basic teaching was summarized by one participant as, “learning to be part of the Earth that is being built upon, to learn to honor the land, to ask permission to modify it, to tune into its messages.”

“All of these professionals have been drawn to our work because of their concern for the Earth and their intuition that transformation of the human psyche is necessary for sustainable living in the future,” explains Dr. Conn.

“In the world we are facing today, with the degradation of both human and non-human natural systems, all professions are called to be oriented to health care, to include the health of the Earth in their work.”

Past Projects

May 12, 2023 Rice University Karin Austin is the new executive director of the John E Mack Institute (JEMI). In this presentation she details the donation of John Mack’s archives to Rice University’s Archives of the Impossible, curated by Jeffrey J. Kripal, Ph.D. I’d like to begin today with my deepest and my most sincere […]

February 2023 — JEMI is proud to premiere a new paper by Tiffany Vance-Huffman of Naropa University: “Shamanic Initiations, Alien Abduction Phenomena, and the Return of the Archetypal Feminine: An Experiential Distillation”. “The purpose of this paper,” Vance-Huffman writes, “is to change the way people think about anomalous experiences and illnesses of the body-mind by examining […]

January 19, 2023 — Dave Schrader of The Darkness Radio interviews Ariel Phenomenon producer Randall Nickerson. If you haven’t yet seen the documentary, play the first 2 minutes of this podcast to hear a sensational collage of excerpts. Listen to Darkness Radio interview with Randall Nickerson (30m, mp3) Ariel Phenomenon is available from many digital retailers. Buying from ArielPhenomenon.com benefits the film […]

November 1, 2022 — Rizwan Virk, founder of Play Labs @ MIT, writes “It wouldn’t be the first time officials put the issue to rest without a full, open-minded investigation” in this essential editorial on NBC News’ THINK website. Christopher Mellon calls it “One of the most balanced and thoughtful recent articles regarding the UAP […]

Footer

Our Socials

Stay connected to the John E. Mack Institute and the projects we’re engaged with through the following social media platforms. We’ll also be using these platforms to respond to the ongoing push towards disclosure, as our civilization comes into awareness of interaction with non-human intelligence.

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on YouTube

Our History

JEMI is named in recognition of John E. Mack, M.D. (1929-2004), Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, to honor his courageous examination of human experience and the ways in which perceptions and beliefs about reality shape the global condition.

Donate to JEMI

Help the John E. Mack Institute to conduct research and to raise awareness around the topic of UAP/UFOs and contact with non-human intelligence by donating today to our 501(c)(3). All donations go directly to supporting this important work at this pivotal time in our civilization's history.

Close×