Abstract

The goal of ecopsychology is to awaken the inherent sense of environmental reciprocity that lies within the ecological unconsciousness. Proclaiming the spirit of ecopsychology, Theodore Roszak argues that psychotherapy is an urban movement, but human beings can never heal themselves until they reconnect with nature. Other therapies aim at healing the alienation between person and person, person and family, person and society; ecopsychology intends to heal the more primary alienation between the person and the natural environment. Henri Lefebvre’s work has revitalized urban studies, geography and planning via concepts like the social production of space. Lefebvre claims that space is not an inert, neutral, and pre-existing given, but rather, an on-going production of spatial relations. According to Lefebvre, space is produced by three types of practice: spatial practices of physical transformation of the environment, practices of representation of space, and everyday practices of representational space. Lefebvre further presents a “differential space,” named as such for its dialectical resistance to the forces of homogenization present in “abstract space.” The aim of this paper is to trace the ecological voice from Roszak’s The Voice of the Earth in Henri Lefebvre’s “differential space.” Roszak’s ecopsychology has formed a differential space, acknowledging that the boundaries of dualism and separations such as mind and body, man and nature should be finally dissolved in terms of ecological sustainability. Within this space, a holistic approach and thinking are created and required to take into account perception of the inextricable relationship between all life and all phenomena.