Ecotherapy — Nature-Based Therapy on the Farm
For adults, teens, and children | In-person near Newburgh, Ontario
If you’ve had thoughts like these:
"I feel better outside. I always have."
"I'm so overstimulated I can't hear myself think."
"I know something is wrong, but I can't feel it until it's already really bad."
"I'm tired of sitting in a room talking about my life instead of actually living it."
"I just need to slow down, but I don't know how to do that anymore."
Ecotherapy might be for you.
What is Ecotherapy?
Ecotherapy is a form of psychotherapy that intentionally uses nature as part of the therapeutic process. Ecotherapy is still psychotherapy. We explore emotions, relationships, patterns, trauma, and life challenges using evidence-based therapeutic approaches. The difference is that the natural environment becomes part of the healing process.
Our world is filled with stimulation.
Screens, noise, notifications, demands, other people's emergencies. It is very good at pulling your attention outward and very bad at giving you space to turn inward. Over time, most people lose the ability to notice what they're actually feeling until it's already a problem — until the body breaks down, the relationship fractures, or the burnout becomes impossible to ignore.
Ecotherapy is a slow practice of coming back.
Not productivity. Not optimization. Not another thing to do correctly. Just slowing down enough that you can start to hear yourself again — and using the natural world as the environment that makes that possible.
There's a reason you feel different outside. It isn't just a feeling. Edward O. Wilson's biophilia hypothesis proposes that humans have an innate affinity for the natural world — that we are, at a biological level, drawn to living systems. Nature doesn't just feel good. It activates something in us that the built world suppresses.
What Happens During an Ecotherapy Session?
Every ecotherapy session is unique, but most involve a combination of traditional psychotherapy, time in nature, and experiential activities that help you slow down, regulate your nervous system, and explore thoughts and emotions in a different way than a traditional office setting.
There's no couch. No neutral office. No box of tissues on a side table. There's a working farm, changing weather, animals with opinions, and more sensory information available in one hour than most people encounter in a week.
Sessions are built around the environment, what's here, what's happening, what you notice when you slow down enough to actually notice.
That might look like:
✓ Walking and talking along the property, moving side by side rather than sitting face to face, which changes what people are willing to say.
✓ Sitting in the goat pasture while sixty animals do exactly what they want, which turns out to be a surprisingly effective mirror for nervous system states.
✓ Working with natural materials, land art, handling objects from the environment, using texture and sensation as a way in when words aren't coming.
✓ Practicing sensory attention not as a mindfulness exercise you're supposed to be doing correctly, but as a genuine investigation. What do you actually hear right now? What does the bark feel like? When did you last pay attention to a bird?
✓ Watching what the animals do because horses respond to human nervous system states in ways that are hard to argue with, and goats are an education in boundaries.
The therapeutic work is still happening. We're still looking at patterns, understanding what's driving things, and figuring out what needs to shift. The difference is that we're doing it in an environment that slows the nervous system down first, which means the work goes somewhere it often can't in an office.
THE INTROSPECTION PIECE
One of the things I notice most in ecotherapy sessions is how many people have lost access to their own internal signal.
Not because they're unaware or unintelligent — but because the world is so loud that the quieter signals don't reach consciousness until they've already become a crisis. The body has been sending information for months. The emotion has been building for years. But it only becomes visible when it crosses a threshold that's impossible to ignore.
This is what chronic overstimulation does. It doesn't eliminate your internal experience — it drowns out the signal before you can act on it.
The farm quiets the noise.
Not immediately, and not magically. But the absence of screens, the presence of living things moving at their own pace, the physical sensation of being outside these create conditions in which the quieter signals can start to come through. Where introspection becomes possible before the red line, not after it.
That's what I'm most interested in working on here. Not crisis management. Not fixing what's already broken. The earlier, quieter work of learning to hear yourself before things get loud.
Who Can Benefit from Ecotherapy?
Ecotherapy may be a good fit if you:
✓ experience anxiety
✓ experience chronic stress
✓ experience burnout
✓ experience sensory overload
✓ have ADHD
✓ are diagnosed with depression
✓ have a history of trauma
✓ enjoy nature
✓ find traditional office therapy difficult
✓ Want to work on something before it becomes a crisis — not after
✓ Are drawn to nature, animals, or a slower pace and want that to be part of the therapeutic work
✓ Are willing to not know exactly what a session will look like
This is not a quick fix. It's not a structured program with a defined endpoint. It's a slow practice — which means it works best for people who can tolerate ambiguity and are genuinely interested in the process rather than just the outcome.
If you want something efficient, measurable, and contained, this probably isn't it. There are other approaches that do that better.
If you want something real, this might be exactly it.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Description text goes heNo. No farming background, no animal experience, nothing required. The animals — particularly the goats and Cinnamon — tend to make introductions themselves. The horses are a little more on their own terms; they may engage or they may not, and there's something quietly powerful about that too. You don't need to do anything except show up.re
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Description text goesMany extended health plans in Ontario cover Registered Psychotherapy. I'm a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) through the CRPO, and I provide receipts for every session that you can submit to your insurer. I offer direct billing to Green Shield Canada — for all other providers, payment is collected at the time of session and you submit the receipt yourself. here
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Ecotherapy happens outside in real weather, not just on nice days — that's part of the practice. We do cancel for thunderstorms or wildfire smoke for safety reasons.
It is also a working farm, so the ground is uneven and can be muddy. If you have mobility considerations, mention it when you reach out, and we'll talk through what's possible and what might need to be adapted.
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Animal-assisted therapy is a type of ecotherapy. This is similar to walk-and-talk therapy or adventure therapy. Some sessions may include both approaches depending on your goals.
HOW I WORK
As both a Registered Practical Nurse and Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), I integrate evidence-based psychotherapy with years of experience living and working on this farm. I've spent more than a decade caring for animals, observing how people respond to natural environments, and creating therapeutic experiences that combine psychological science with meaningful connection to nature.
That knowledge isn't separate from the therapeutic work. It's part of it.
Sessions near Newburgh, Ontario. A virtual intake is completed before farm sessions begin.
✓ Adults, teens, and children
✓ Individual sessions
✓ $180 per session
✓ Insurance receipts provided — direct billing for Green Shield Canada, other insurance is your responsibility to submit.
✓ CRPO Registration
Next Steps
If this resonates — even quietly — that's probably worth paying attention to.
Your first session is just a conversation. No agenda, no pressure, no expectation that you arrive knowing what you need.
Have a question?