What Happens When You Take Therapy Outside

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGMLlGtMQ5I

There's a moment Helen Blackburn describes in this video that most of us probably recognise, even if we haven't put it into words. You're sitting with a fallen log, peering into the gap where it meets the ground, and suddenly you're looking at an entire world: tiny insects, small green shoots, things growing in the dark. And something changes about how you view the world. It's quiet and very real.

This is at the heart of Working With Our Clients' Story in the Landscape, a two-day course with Golden Acre Park in north-west Leeds on 30 and 31 May, led by Helen Blackburn (PTSTA) and Andy Williams (TSTA). The course brings together ecological philosophy, Transactional Analysis, and the simple but underestimated fact that being outdoors does something to us that being indoors doesn't quite replicate.

Awe in both directions

One of the threads running through Andy and Helen's conversation about the course is the word "awe." Not in any mystical sense, but as a description of something quite specific. Something that happens when we encounter scale.

Stand at the edge of a lake and look out. Stand on a hill. Look up at a very tall tree. Feel the sky above an open field. There's something that happens to our sense of self in those moments, a loosening of the tight grip the everyday tends to have on us. And then, the reverse: bring your attention right down to a single small leaf, a tiny shoot just breaking through. What happens in that shift? What does it feel like to move between the vast and the minute?

Script, story and the landscape as a living metaphor - therapy outside

The course framework is rooted in TA's concept of life script; the early decisions we make about ourselves and the world, often formed before we had the language to question them. Andy reflects on something that will feel familiar to many practitioners: that when a child feels misunderstood by the humans around them, they often turn elsewhere. To a pet. To a tree. To the garden. There's something about the wider world that is different.

The course works with that instinct. Participants will be invited to bring a personal question or theme outdoors, and to explore it not through talking to another person but through the relationship with the landscape itself: an open space, a tree, a piece of bramble, the edge of the water. These are the kinds of exercises you'll experience first for yourself, and then develop an understanding of how to bring them into your clinical work.

The aim, as Helen puts it, is to leave with something both personal and pragmatic. Something that happens in you during the two days, something that may continue to unfold after you've gone home, and a set of practical exercises you can use with clients.

Not just about going outside

It would be easy to hear "eco therapy" and think this course is only for practitioners who want to work outdoors with clients. It isn't, and Helen is clear on this point. Working ecologically is also a philosophical position. It's about the relationship between person and world, and that relationship doesn't disappear when you're inside a therapy room.

Andy describes putting an anxiety against the timeline of the world and the universe. The sense of scale changes. What can feel enormous can become something more proportionate, because it is placed in a larger context. That's ecological thinking at work in a room, without a leaf in sight.

The place itself

The two days use two distinct outdoor environments: the woodland at Adel Dam Nature Reserve and the more open landscape around Golden Acre Park, also with Paul's Pond as part of the focus on the second day. There's a deliberate rhythm to this. The first day is for working, encountering, exploring. The second day, at the water's edge, has a little more time for reflection: spacious, quieter, giving time to settle what's been stirred.

The course is based at Golden Acre Park, with the option to bring your own lunch/refreshments or have use the park cafe.

Who is it for?

The course is open to counsellors, therapists, practitioners and anyone interested in working with landscape or the wider eco philosophy in their practice. You don't need prior experience of eco therapy or therapy outside. Suitable footwear and clothing for outdoor working (and, this being Yorkshire in May, all weathers) is recommended. Paths are a mixture of tracks and tarmac and we'll be going a little off piste into the woodland.

Course details

Working With Our Clients' Story in the Landscape 30 & 31 May 2026, 9.30am to 4.30pm Meeting at Golden Acre Park Car Park, Leeds LS16 9JY Fee: £150. Tickets and booking via the course page.