It has been over a year, and although many have tried, nobody has met the momentous challenge put forth by Michael J. Cohen, Ph.D. Cohen claims that nobody having met his challenge verifies the value of Educating, Counseling and Healing With Nature (ECHN), a sensory science that he has researched and taught since 1969. Cohen is an Akamai University Ecopsychologist who practices on San Juan Island, Washington.

ECHN is a hands-on, relationship building tool that helps anybody increase their IQ (6) and personal, social and environmental well-being. The art of its methods and materials enables the industrial world to heal the wounds that underlie many disorders.

Cohen’s challenge is for any person to identify any “thing,” be it a noun or a verb, that does not consist of natural attraction energy (1). He says, “Nobody has successfully met this challenge, with one exception, because natural attraction is the essence of everything.”

Natural attraction (NA) is the basic of nature that unifies all things in mutually supportive ways so that nature produces no garbage and has self-correcting powers that are found everywhere. We overlook that these powers manifest themselves in us as natural sensory attractions such as our thirst for water, or our love of place, community or peace. We undeniably experience the benefit of NA powers when we are attracted to quietly visit a natural area. Our psyche becomes calm; we feel more alive, intact and whole.

ECHN recognizes that NA is the fundamental energy in sub-atomics, ourselves and galaxies. It interconnects as well as holds all things together and registers in our consciousness as at least 53 natural senses (2). Each sense attracts our body, mind and spirit to interlace with authentic nature’s balance and perfection. Doing so produces happiness along with awareness of how to build sensible relationships and increase wellness (3).

“We are part of nature,” says Cohen. “However, to our loss, the excessive, nature-disconnected and conquering ways of Industrial Society weaken, hurt or frighten most of our 53 NA sensitivities into our subconscious. It is the absence of their benefits to us, or the fear of their pain, that excessively stresses us. It prevents us from thinking, feeling and relating like the balanced and restorative ways of NA work, in and around us.”

Cohen says that the wide range of conflicting wants and needs expressed by the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS) identifies the central problem that we and OWS protestors have yet to address. “Due to the reduction of NA whole-life energy and spirit in our thoughts and feelings, we suffer the nonsense of supporting and living in the unfairness of an insane society.”

“What we seek in common is happiness, the cooperative sanity and peaceful wellness that NA helps us achieve when it is present in our lives,” says Cohen. (4). “Most bankers, politicians, brokers and their families seek this as well but via money, not via conscious sensory contact with NA.”

“Significantly, our leaders and the OWS participants have yet to recognize that the loss of NA in our psyche produces our insanity, nor do they know how to correct this loss,” offers Cohen. “More significant still is that ECHN is a purifying remedy for our madness that has long been available (5). All this implies that the fundamental problem we suffer is denial. We deny that our unbalanced ways result from the loss of NA in our senses, thoughts and feelings. In addition, we deny that ECHN enables us to replace this loss.”

Cohen shows that individuals trained in ECHN will enable the world to build peaceful, green, relationships and economies (7).

For further information contact: Michael J. Cohen, Ph.D. http://www.SaneEarth.com, , 360-378-6313

REFERENCES:
1. http://www.ecopsych.com/journalchallenge.html
2. http://www.ecopsych.com/insight53senses.html
3. http://www.ecopsych.com/2004ecoheal.html
4. http://www.ecopsych.com/testimonals.html
5. http://www.ecopsych.com/survey.html
6. http://www.ecopsych.com/journaliqrelease.html
7. http://www.ecopsych.com/insight2005.html

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Biography of Michael J Cohen:

Recipient of the 1994 Distinguished World Citizen Award, Applied Ecopsychologist Michael J. Cohen, Ph.D., is a Program Director of the Institute of Global Education where he coordinates its Integrated Ecology Department and Project NatureConnect. He also serves on the faculty of Portland State University and the Akamai University Institute of Applied Ecopsychology whose program he initiated and has directed since 1990. In 1965, Dr. Cohen discovered that Planet Earth acted like a living organism and from this he founded sensory, Gaia based, degree granting Environmental and Expedition Education outdoor programs independently and for the National Audubon Society and Lesley University. He conceived the 1985 National Audubon International Symposium “Is the Earth a Living Organism,” at the University of Massachusetts and established the sensory science of Natural Attraction Ecology in 2008. He is the Editor of the “Journal of Organic Psychology and Natural Attraction Ecology” and an award winning author of ten books dealing with Applied Ecopsychology including “Educating, Counseling and Healing With Nature,” “The Web Of Life Imperative” and “Reconnecting With Nature.” Dr. Cohen is also an accomplished folk song artist and contra dancer who presents traditional music programs accompanied by guitar, banjo and accordion for the U.S. National Park Service and Skagit Valley College
Elderhostel on San Juan Island, Washington.

A video about his lifework may be viewed at
http://www.imdb.comtitle/tt1357054

CONTACT: http://www.ecopsych.com  
Telephone 360-378-6313, Pacific Time Zone