holywood model: What If Therapy Could Be a Walk in the Woods?

There's a special shade of green—somewhere in between a yellowy chartreuse and a loud neon—that hits the trees in Philadelphia each spring and summer. I had never noticed it before, this green that enthusiastically and bossily announces that it is <I>green</I>, but then again, I had never noticed a lot of things before this year, when I first began wandering into the woods. As soon as the new leaves started to sprout in April, a break from the browns and grays of winter, I could feel myself channeling my former ecotherapist, Lauren Kahn, while staring out into the forested distance. When we used to walk into the woods together, she would ask:

Like most local lore, my introduction to ecotherapy came by way of one of those cool friends who are always in the know while we shot the shit late one night. She had been looking for a therapist when she moved to the northwest part of Philly—the area that backs up against Wissahickon Valley Park, a 2,000-acre spread of rich woodlands and trails on Indigenous Lenape territory—and, via Google, happened upon the Psychology Today page for Kahn, whose professional photo was accompanied by several others of the leafy green woods. In her profile, Kahn wrote that she offered outdoor sessions, and that appealed to my friend, so she reached out and began doing therapy in the park with her. For me, after years of in-office therapy, then phone therapy, then my therapist eventually retiring in a waterfalling series of downgrades that came as a necessity of the pandemic, the thought of taking a walk outside with a licensed professional sounded ideal." title="There's a special shade of green—somewhere in between a yellowy chartreuse and a loud neon—that hits the trees in Philadelphia each spring and summer. I had never noticed it before, this green that enthusiastically and bossily announces that it is green, but then again, I had never noticed a lot of things before this year, when I first began wandering into the woods. As soon as the new leaves started to sprout in April, a break from the browns and grays of winter, I could feel myself channeling my former ecotherapist, Lauren Kahn, while staring out into the forested distance. When we used to walk into the woods together, she would ask: "What do you notice? What do you see?"

Like most local lore, my introduction to ecotherapy came by way of one of those cool friends who are always in the know while we shot the shit late one night. She had been looking for a therapist when she moved to the northwest part of Philly—the area that backs up against Wissahickon Valley Park, a 2,000-acre spread of rich woodlands and trails on Indigenous Lenape territory—and, via Google, happened upon the Psychology Today page for Kahn, whose professional photo was accompanied by several others of the leafy green woods. In her profile, Kahn wrote that she offered outdoor sessions, and that appealed to my friend, so she reached out and began doing therapy in the park with her. For me, after years of in-office therapy, then phone therapy, then my therapist eventually retiring in a waterfalling series of downgrades that came as a necessity of the pandemic, the thought of taking a walk outside with a licensed professional sounded ideal.">

What If Therapy Could Be a Walk in the Woods?

There's a special shade of green—somewhere in between a yellowy chartreuse and a loud neon—that hits the trees in Philadelphia each spring and summer. I had never noticed it before, this green that enthusiastically and bossily announces that it is green, but then again, I had never noticed a lot of things before this year, when I first began wandering into the woods. As soon as the new leaves started to sprout in April, a break from the browns and grays of winter, I could feel myself channeling my former ecotherapist, Lauren Kahn, while staring out into the forested distance. When we used to walk into the woods together, she would ask: "What do you notice? What do you see?"

Like most local lore, my introduction to ecotherapy came by way of one of those cool friends who are always in the know while we shot the shit late one night. She had been looking for a therapist when she moved to the northwest part of Philly—the area that backs up against Wissahickon Valley Park, a 2,000-acre spread of rich woodlands and trails on Indigenous Lenape territory—and, via Google, happened upon the Psychology Today page for Kahn, whose professional photo was accompanied by several others of the leafy green woods. In her profile, Kahn wrote that she offered outdoor sessions, and that appealed to my friend, so she reached out and began doing therapy in the park with her. For me, after years of in-office therapy, then phone therapy, then my therapist eventually retiring in a waterfalling series of downgrades that came as a necessity of the pandemic, the thought of taking a walk outside with a licensed professional sounded ideal.

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