A research-informed conceptual model exploring how natural environments, social interaction, facilitation and personal expression may contribute to the experience of Shinrin-Yoku.
Nature connectedness · previous experiences · mobility · accessibility · expectations · culture · social preferences · memories
Forest air, vegetation, sounds, light, sensory exposure, movement and rest.
Companionship, shared silence, conversation, belonging, and collective attention.
Safety, pacing, accessible experiences, voluntary invitations and individual autonomy.
Reflection, listening, storytelling, writing, music, movement, and personal meaning.
These dimensions may interact rather than simply add together. The forest may change how people gather, while the group and guide may influence how individuals experience the forest.
Possible changes in stress-related responses, alertness, rest, and attention.
Emotional experiences, shared moments, social connection, or the feeling of being heard.
Personal interpretation, memory, nature connectedness, or a possible motivation to return to nature.
Exploring the therapeutic dimensions of social connection, shared experience, emotional expression, and guided encounters with nature.
In my previous article, Does Nature Experience Need to Be Organized to Become Therapeutic?, I questioned whether professional guidance is necessary on top of the forest to influence human well-being. We considered evidence suggesting that natural environments can influence physiological and psychological processes independently of therapeutic intention, and that guided and unguided experiences may differ not necessarily in their overall effectiveness, but in the qualities of experience they make possible.
Yet this discussion leaves an important question largely unexplored. When people participate in a guided nature-related experience session, they are not simply spending time in a natural environment under the companionship of a guide. They may also be spending time with other human beings, engaging in shared activities, observing one another, listening to different perspectives, expressing emotions, and participating in a temporary social community.
Could some of the benefits associated with guided forest experiences arise not only from the natural environment, but also from what happens between the people who have gathered there?
And if so, how should we understand the therapeutic contribution of social interaction, conversation, reflection, and collective experience within the wider context of Shinrin-Yoku?
The question becomes even more interesting when we consider that many activities associated with guided nature experiences are not exclusive to forests. People gather in groups to sing, dance, meditate, write, paint, share stories, walk together, and discuss their experiences. Some of these activities have been investigated independently within psychology, public health, social neuroscience, psychotherapy, and the creative arts.
What happens when these activities take place in a forest, in nature? Do their effects simply accumulate alongside those associated with natural environmental exposure? Might they interact to produce different experiences? Or do we sometimes attribute to the forest benefits that arise partly from ordinary processes of human connection?
Perhaps before asking what makes a guided forest experience therapeutic, we need to ask a more fundamental question: what makes any human experience therapeutic in the first place?
Consider a group of eight people gathered in a forest. They may have arrived as strangers. Some may already feel comfortable in natural environments, while others may be unfamiliar with the setting. Some may be seeking relaxation, some may be curious about Shinrin-Yoku, and others may simply wish to spend time outdoors.
The guide welcomes them and introduces the session. Over the following hours, participants move through the forest, sometimes individually and sometimes together. They may observe their surroundings, participate in sensory or reflective invitations, sit in silence, and occasionally gather to share aspects of their experiences.
By the end of the session, some may describe feeling calmer, more connected, emotionally lighter, or more aware of their surroundings. Others may report less noticeable changes, or experiences that are difficult to describe.
What has contributed to these responses?
The forest environment is one possible influence. Its sensory and ecological characteristics may affect physiological processes associated with stress regulation, attention, and emotional experience. But several additional factors are present: the physical movement involved, the time spent away from ordinary responsibilities, the opportunity to rest, the participant’s expectations, the presence of the guide, the social atmosphere, and the interactions that occur throughout the session.
Even the simple act of deciding to participate may be meaningful. A person has chosen to dedicate time to themselves, temporarily step outside their usual routine, and enter an environment in which they are not expected to perform their ordinary social or professional responsibilities.
Is that decision itself part of the experience’s potential benefit?
We should be cautious about assuming that an observed improvement can be attributed to one component when several influences are operating simultaneously. The experience is not simply the forest plus a set of invitations. It is an interaction between environmental, physiological, psychological, behavioural, and social processes.
This complexity is not necessarily a weakness of guided Shinrin-Yoku. It may be one of its defining characteristics.
The scientific challenge is to understand these different contributions without reducing a complex human experience to a single explanation.
The relevance of social relationships to health is well established, although the mechanisms and strength of particular associations remain subjects of ongoing research.
In an influential meta-analysis, Holt-Lunstad, Smith, and Layton (2010) examined 148 studies involving more than 308,000 participants. Their findings showed that individuals with stronger social relationships had approximately 50% greater odds of survival over the periods studied than those with weaker social relationships. This figure describes an association in survival odds, not a 50% increase in lifespan, and it does not establish that any particular social activity will produce such an effect.
Nevertheless, the findings indicate that social relationships deserve serious consideration within our understanding of human health.
In 2025, the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Connection published a report identifying loneliness and social isolation as significant public-health concerns. The report emphasised that social health should be considered alongside physical and mental health, recognising that opportunities for meaningful human connection are not merely pleasant additions to life, but important dimensions of well-being.
These findings invite us to look differently at group-based Shinrin-Yoku.
When individuals gather in a forest, are they participating only in a nature-based intervention, mindfulness experience, etc. or are they also participating in a form of social engagement that may have its own health-related relevance?
If the second possibility is true, should social connectedness be considered a secondary outcome of a guided session, or one of the experiences intentionally supported through its design?
There is a distinction between being surrounded by people and feeling connected to them. A person may participate in a group activity and remain emotionally isolated. Another may feel a strong sense of belonging without speaking very much at all.
Therefore, group participation alone cannot be treated as evidence of meaningful social connection.
What matters may be the quality of the interaction, the participant’s sense of acceptance, the opportunity to participate without pressure, and whether the experience allows relationships to emerge naturally.
A gathering is not necessarily a community. But under certain conditions, it may become the beginning of one.
The discussion of social relationships and health brings us to the widely recognised concept of the Blue Zones: geographical regions associated with unusually high proportions of people reaching advanced ages.
The concept was popularised by Dan Buettner and developed from demographic investigations into longevity in places such as Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia in Italy, and Nicoya in Costa Rica, alongside other communities subsequently included in the popular Blue Zones framework.
One of the recurring observations in discussions of these regions concerns the importance of social relationships, family networks, community participation, and a sense of belonging.
In Okinawa, for example, the tradition of moai refers to social networks through which people may develop longstanding relationships involving mutual assistance, emotional support, and shared responsibilities. In traditional Sardinian communities, close relationships between generations and regular participation in communal life have also been described as features of the social environment.
What makes these observations interesting is not simply that people spend time together. It is that social relationships may be woven into ordinary life rather than separated into occasional activities intended to improve well-being.
However, we need to approach Blue Zones research critically.
A 2025 scoping review of the scientific literature found stronger demographic evidence for exceptional longevity in Okinawa, Ogliastra in Sardinia, and Nicoya than in several other locations commonly discussed as Blue Zones. At the same time, extreme-longevity research has faced criticism concerning age verification, record quality, and the interpretation of demographic patterns. Researchers involved in Blue Zones investigations have challenged some of these criticisms, arguing that validated records support their findings.
Even where unusual longevity is documented, identifying the cause is another matter. Diet, physical activity, genetics, healthcare access, historical conditions, socioeconomic circumstances, and social relationships may all contribute. The presence of strong community networks does not establish that socialisation alone explains longevity.
We should therefore avoid presenting Blue Zones as proof that gathering with others extends life.
Yet the wider evidence concerning social relationships and health, including large longitudinal studies, gives us good reason to examine the social environments of communities associated with healthy ageing.
This leads to a philosophical question that I find especially relevant to guided Shinrin-Yoku.
If meaningful social relationships are an important part of human well-being, why do we so often separate social connection into a specialised activity rather than treating it as an ordinary dimension of life?
In many contemporary societies, individuals may work, travel, shop, exercise, and even relax largely independently. Opportunities for unhurried social interaction may require deliberate planning. We organise workshops, group retreats, community activities, and therapeutic programmes partly to create opportunities that are less readily available within everyday routines.
Is a guided Shinrin-Yoku session sometimes responding to two forms of disconnection at once: disconnection from natural environments and disconnection from other human beings?
And if so, are we sufficiently attentive to both?
Perhaps the value of a group forest session is not that it reproduces the social conditions of long-lived communities. A temporary gathering cannot be equated with lifelong networks of mutual care. Rather, it may provide an opportunity to experience particular qualities of social interaction: presence, shared attention, mutual respect, and belonging.
Whether these experiences develop into lasting relationships is another question, and one that deserves further investigation.
Research comparing guided and unguided forest experiences offers some support for considering the social dimension separately.
Kim and Shin (2021) examined the written reflections of 37 undergraduate students participating in guided and self-guided forest therapy experiences. Both groups described sensory aspects of the forest and different forms of perceived benefit. However, self-guided participants mentioned introspection more frequently, while guided participants referred more often to emotional changes and social interaction.
The findings do not demonstrate that guided forest therapy is more therapeutically effective. They do, however, suggest that the presence of a guide and other participants may influence the character of the encounter.
Interestingly, research from outside nature-based interventions offers another perspective.
Boothby, Clark, and Bargh (2014) investigated how sharing an experience with another person can influence its subjective intensity, even without verbal communication. In their experiments, shared pleasant experiences were perceived more positively, while shared unpleasant experiences were perceived more negatively.
This distinction matters. Shared experience did not simply make everything better. It appeared to amplify the emotional quality of what was being experienced.
Could something similar occur when people experience a forest together?
Imagine two participants quietly observing sunlight moving through the branches of a tree. Neither speaks. Both are aware that the other is present and attending to the same scene.
Does their shared attention influence the experience?
Perhaps. But we cannot assume that findings from laboratory experiments involving shared tasting experiences translate directly to forest settings. They provide a theoretical possibility worth examining.
More importantly, they challenge the assumption that social connection requires conversation.
People may share an experience through proximity, common attention, coordinated movement, or silence. They may feel connected without verbalising their thoughts or emotions.
This invites us to question whether every gathering during a Shinrin-Yoku session needs to involve spoken reflection.
Could collective silence sometimes be more meaningful than conversation?
And might the simple awareness that another person is sharing the same moment contribute to the sense of belonging, even when nothing is said?
In guided Yoku sessions, participants may be invited to share observations or reflections following an activity. Such sharing is sometimes treated as a way of integrating an experience or fostering group connection.
But what exactly happens when we express an experience in words?
Consider someone who has been sitting beside a tree. During the experience, they notice a particular quality of stillness, perhaps accompanied by an emotion or memory. When they later describe this to the group, they must select words, organise their observations, and decide which aspects of the experience they wish to communicate.
The process of speaking may draw attention to dimensions that were not fully recognised during the original experience.
But is this process necessarily therapeutic?
Research on emotional disclosure provides a useful starting point. Frattaroli (2006), in a meta-analysis of 146 randomised studies, found a small but statistically significant average benefit associated with experimental emotional disclosure. This literature includes structured writing and other forms of expression concerning personal experiences.
However, the findings do not imply that speaking about emotions is universally beneficial, nor that a short reflection shared during Shinrin-Yoku is equivalent to a therapeutic disclosure intervention.
The context matters. The nature of the experience matters. The participant’s readiness, expectations, personal history, and perceived safety may all influence whether expression feels helpful or uncomfortable.
Furthermore, expression is not the same as emotional resolution. A person may articulate a difficult experience without necessarily feeling better afterwards. In some circumstances, speaking may intensify emotion, introduce self-consciousness, or create a sense of vulnerability.
This brings us to an important distinction between expression and meaning-making.
Expression involves communicating something about an experience. Meaning-making involves interpreting, relating, or integrating an experience into one’s understanding of oneself or the world. The two processes may interact, but they are not identical.
A participant may say that a particular tree reminded them of their childhood. Another may speak about noticing a feeling of gratitude. A third may simply describe the colour of the leaves.
Should we assume that one reflection is deeper or more therapeutic than another?
Perhaps not.
What appears simple to a listener may carry considerable meaning for the person speaking. And what sounds emotionally profound may not necessarily reflect a lasting psychological change.
This is why I believe we should be careful not to judge the value of an experience according to how eloquently or emotionally a participant describes it.
Nor should the guide assume responsibility for interpreting what a participant’s reflection means.
The meaning belongs to the participant.
The guide may offer a space in which expression is possible, but should not require participants to transform every experience into a personal revelation.
There is another dimension to conversation that deserves attention: the experience of being listened to.
When someone shares a personal observation in a group, the experience involves more than the production of words. It also involves the response of the listeners.
A participant may feel acknowledged, understood, accepted, or simply given the opportunity to speak without interruption.
Cohen and Wills (1985), in their influential work on social support and stress, distinguished between the general benefits of social integration and the buffering role of support during stressful experiences. Their review suggests that the availability and quality of interpersonal support may influence how individuals experience stress.
Bernard Rimé (2009) further examined how emotional experiences frequently lead people to share their feelings with others and how this social sharing contributes to interpersonal and emotional processes.
These findings invite us to consider listening as an active part of a group experience.
Perhaps the contribution of reflection does not lie solely in speaking, but also in being received by another person.
Yet we must be careful here. A group can provide support, but it can also create discomfort. Participants may compare their experiences, feel uncertain about what is appropriate to say, or become concerned about how others will interpret their reflections.
If one person describes a deeply moving encounter with nature, others may begin to wonder why they did not experience something similar.
Could the sharing process unintentionally create expectations about what a meaningful Shinrin-Yoku experience should look like?
Might participants begin to perform emotional depth because they believe it is expected?
This is an important ethical question for guides.
A reflection circle should not become a competition in personal insight, nor should silence be interpreted as resistance, disconnection, or lack of engagement.
The opportunity to share may be valuable, but the freedom not to share may be equally important.
The responsibility of the guide is therefore not simply to encourage conversation, but to establish appropriate boundaries around it.
Voluntary participation, respect for privacy, non-judgment, appropriate group agreements, and clear distinctions between Shinrin-Yoku facilitation and psychotherapy are essential.
A Shinrin-Yoku Guide is not automatically qualified to conduct psychological treatment, even when participants express emotional or personally significant experiences.
The discussion becomes even more interesting when we look beyond spoken reflection.
Human beings express themselves through movement, rhythm, sound, writing, drawing, gesture, and many other forms of activity. Some of these forms of expression have been investigated as independent therapeutic or health-supporting interventions.
Music therapy provides one example. A Cochrane review by Aalbers and colleagues (2017) examined nine studies involving 421 participants and found that music therapy added to usual treatment could improve short-term depressive symptoms compared with usual treatment alone.
Research has also examined community music-making outside formal clinical therapy. Fancourt and colleagues (2016) reported improvements in depression, anxiety, well-being, and social resilience among participants in a ten-week group-drumming intervention. However, the study was exploratory, and its findings cannot be interpreted as evidence that simply introducing drums into a forest session would produce comparable effects.
Similarly, Koch and colleagues (2019) reviewed controlled studies of dance and dance movement therapy, identifying benefits across several psychological outcomes while also highlighting differences between interventions and populations.
What do these findings tell us about guided nature experiences?
Perhaps they remind us that some of the activities introduced during a forest session may contribute to well-being through processes that are not exclusive to the forest.
Rhythmic movement, creative expression, social coordination, enjoyment, physical activity, and a sense of achievement may all influence the quality of an experience.
But we should distinguish between an activity having potentially beneficial effects and that activity constituting a recognised therapeutic treatment.
Dancing freely among trees is not automatically dance movement therapy. Listening to music in a forest is not necessarily music therapy. Writing a reflection is not the same as participating in a structured therapeutic writing intervention.
Professional therapeutic disciplines involve specific training, methods, responsibilities, and contexts that should not be replaced by superficial similarities between activities.
Nevertheless, evidence from these fields invites us to investigate the contribution of expressive and creative activities within broader nature-based programmes.
Could movement contribute to emotional expression? Could shared rhythm influence social connection? Could writing help participants organise and revisit their observations? Might drawing offer an alternative form of reflection for someone who finds verbal expression difficult?
And what if the natural environment contributes something distinctive to these activities?
Would writing beneath a tree feel different from writing indoors? Would moving through a quiet forest influence attention differently from dancing in a studio? Does an outdoor environment change the emotional meaning of group singing or shared creative activity?
We should not assume that it does in every case. These are empirical questions requiring appropriate comparisons.
Yet philosophically, they invite us to understand guided nature experiences as encounters in which multiple dimensions of human life may come together.
This brings us to a question that may be more difficult than identifying physiological or psychological benefits. What makes an experience meaningful?
Meaning is not necessarily the same as pleasure, relaxation, emotional intensity, or measurable improvement in mood.
A person may experience a peaceful afternoon in a forest and find it enjoyable but not particularly significant. Another may encounter a difficult emotion, reflect upon an unresolved memory, or recognise something about their relationship with another person. The second experience may be uncomfortable, yet personally meaningful.
Does the presence of discomfort make an experience less therapeutic? Not necessarily. But neither should we assume that discomfort indicates psychological growth. We must be cautious about romanticising emotional difficulty or interpreting intense experiences as inherently transformative.
Meaning may emerge through many processes: attention, memory, interpretation, personal values, relationships, cultural associations, or the recognition of something previously unnoticed.
Research by Lumber, Richardson, and Sheffield (2017) identified contact, emotion, compassion, meaning, and beauty as pathways associated with the development of nature connectedness.
These pathways offer a useful framework for considering how people may relate to natural environments beyond simple physical exposure.
However, they do not imply that every participant must experience beauty, compassion, or emotional connection during a guided session.
What if a participant notices a decaying tree and reflects upon impermanence? What if another feels uneasy in the forest because of an earlier experience? What if someone finds meaning not in nature itself, but in the opportunity to spend time with a friend?
Are these less legitimate forms of engagement?
I would argue that we should resist defining meaningful nature experience too narrowly.
Meaning is not something that a guide can reliably produce through a sequence of invitations. It is shaped by the participant’s relationship with the environment and by the personal, social, and cultural contexts they bring into the experience.
Perhaps one of the most significant responsibilities of the guide is to avoid prescribing meaning.
An invitation can open a possibility. It cannot determine what that possibility will become.
At this point, it becomes increasingly difficult to speak about the therapeutic contribution of guided Shinrin-Yoku as though it originated from a single source.
Imagine a participant who attends a forest session and reports feeling more relaxed afterwards. Several processes may have contributed.
The natural environment may have influenced physiological stress regulation. The participant may have benefited from walking slowly, resting, or being temporarily removed from everyday demands. The structure of the session may have helped create a sense of orientation and safety. The opportunity to interact with others may have provided enjoyment or belonging. A particular invitation may have prompted reflection. A conversation may have influenced the interpretation of an experience.
These influences are not necessarily independent.
Feeling physically comfortable may make social interaction easier. A welcoming group may reduce apprehension about entering an unfamiliar environment. A meaningful conversation may change how someone remembers a particular place. The natural setting may influence how comfortable participants feel speaking about themselves.
Could the effects of these elements interact rather than simply accumulate?
This is an important methodological question.
If we wish to investigate the specific contribution of the forest, we may need to compare similar activities conducted in natural and built environments. If we wish to examine social interaction, we may need to compare solitary and group experiences. If we wish to investigate guidance, we may need to distinguish the influence of facilitation from the influence of group participation.
A study that compares a solitary forest walk with a guided group session changes several variables simultaneously. Even if outcomes differ, it may remain unclear whether those differences arise from the presence of the guide, the group, the activities, or their interaction.
This does not invalidate such research. It simply limits the conclusions we can draw.
Perhaps future research should distinguish between environmental exposure, social interaction, guided attention, expressive activities, and personal meaning-making while recognising that these elements may influence one another.
For example, researchers could examine whether the opportunity for voluntary reflection changes participants’ experience of a guided session, or whether repeated group participation contributes to lasting social relationships.
We might also investigate whether group experiences influence subsequent independent nature engagement. Does someone who feels socially supported during a guided session become more confident about returning to nature alone? Or might repeated participation be valued primarily for the opportunity to spend time with others?
Both outcomes could be meaningful, but they reflect different processes.
In my book Your Guide to Becoming a Forest Therapy Guide (Guziak, 2026), I discuss guided forest therapy as an experience in which the role of the guide includes not only practical preparation and sensory invitations, but also creating opportunities for reflection and direct communication. social connectedness, among other factors.
This understanding is developed further through The Mindful Tourist’s Scaffolded Model of Engagement and my writing in the Shinrin-Yoku Journal, where guidance is considered a participant-centred process rather than a method for controlling individual outcomes.
From this perspective, the guide does not create the forest’s therapeutic potential and does not manufacture social relationships.
Instead, the guide helps establish a framework within which several relationships may unfold: the individual’s relationship with the environment, their relationship with their own experience, and their relationship with others.
This brings the discussion close to the three principles that inform our approach to Shinrin-Yoku education: co-creation, co-responsibility, and co-being.
These principles invite us to consider a guided experience as something that emerges through participation rather than something delivered entirely by a professional.
The guide prepares, observes, adapts, and supports. Participants bring their histories, expectations, preferences, and responses. The natural environment contributes its changing conditions, ecological characteristics, and sensory possibilities.
And the group itself may influence what becomes possible.
Yet we should not assume that co-creation means everyone must participate in the same way. Some people may express themselves verbally; others may prefer silence. Some may value group interaction; others may find it tiring or distracting. Some may feel connected through shared activities, while others may prefer to explore independently.
Could the quality of facilitation be measured partly by the guide’s ability to accommodate these differences without implying that one form of participation is more desirable than another?
Perhaps an ethically guided session is not one in which everyone shares deeply, becomes emotional, or reports feeling connected.
Perhaps it is one in which individuals can engage according to their own circumstances while feeling respected and included.
So far, we have considered many potential benefits of social experience. But social interaction is not inherently beneficial.
Being in a group can also introduce pressure, comparison, uncertainty, overstimulation, conflict, or discomfort.
A person seeking solitude may find a group session distracting. Someone with social anxiety may feel apprehensive about speaking. A participant who has experienced trauma may respond differently to personal questions, physical proximity, or group attention.
Cultural differences may also influence how people understand emotional expression. In some contexts, openly discussing personal feelings with unfamiliar individuals may feel natural. In others, privacy, indirect communication, or shared silence may be preferred.
If a guide assumes that verbal sharing is necessary for integration, might the session become less accessible to those who communicate differently?
There is also the question of confidentiality. Participants may be encouraged to speak about their experiences, but a guide cannot guarantee that other group members will maintain privacy outside the session.
This is one reason why guided Shinrin-Yoku should not be confused with group psychotherapy.
The purpose of a reflective gathering is not to investigate personal trauma, interpret psychological symptoms, or encourage emotional disclosure beyond the participant’s readiness.
A guide may facilitate conversation, but should remain attentive to the limits of their professional competence.
Perhaps the therapeutic potential of social interaction depends partly on something that is easy to overlook: the freedom to choose whether and how to participate.
A person who feels obliged to speak may experience the group very differently from someone who knows that silence is acceptable.
And perhaps a sense of belonging is more likely to emerge when individuals do not have to demonstrate that they belong.
If guided experience involves environmental exposure, social experience, attention, expression, and meaning-making, we should question whether the outcomes commonly used in research adequately capture the full experience.
Physiological markers such as cortisol, blood pressure, and heart-rate variability may help us understand aspects of stress-related processes. Psychological questionnaires may provide information about mood, perceived stress, and well-being.
But what about the feeling of being heard? The experience of participating in a group without judgment? The discovery that others perceive the same environment differently? The development of confidence in unfamiliar natural settings? Or a growing willingness to engage with nature independently?
Are these simply secondary outcomes, or might they represent important dimensions of what makes the experience valuable?
It may also be useful to distinguish immediate outcomes from those that emerge over time.
A participant may leave a session feeling relaxed without subsequently changing their everyday habits. Another may experience little immediate change but develop an interest in spending more time outdoors. A third may value the experience primarily because it offered an opportunity to meet others.
These outcomes should not be treated as interchangeable.
If the aim of a particular programme is stress reduction, measures of stress are relevant. If its aim is nature connectedness, different measures may be appropriate. If its aim includes social inclusion or community engagement, the evaluation should reflect those objectives.
And if our intention is to understand lived experience more broadly, qualitative and phenomenological approaches may offer insights that physiological measures alone cannot provide.
This is particularly relevant to my wider interest in the relationship between nature connectedness, mindful awareness, and emotional regulation. In my 2024 research, Investigating Relationships between Nature Connection, Emotion Regulation and Mindful Attention Awareness, I examined associations between these psychological constructs. Such work provides a foundation for asking more detailed questions about individual differences, although correlational findings cannot by themselves establish causal mechanisms.
Perhaps the next step is to consider not only the relationship between a person and nature, but also how that relationship is influenced by the presence of others.
Does sharing an experience strengthen nature connectedness? Does social support make nature engagement more accessible? Could feeling connected to nature influence how individuals relate to other people?
And might the relationships work in more than one direction?
This brings us back to the philosophical question underlying both articles.
We use the word therapeutic to describe experiences that appear to support healing, restoration, or well-being. Yet the term can be understood differently in everyday language, scientific research, and clinical practice.
An enjoyable conversation may improve someone’s mood. Listening to music may provide emotional comfort. Dancing with friends may create a sense of joy. Writing about an experience may help someone reflect. Spending time with others in nature may provide companionship.
These activities can contribute to well-being without necessarily constituting formal therapeutic interventions.
Should we label all of them therapeutic?
Perhaps doing so risks turning ordinary dimensions of human life into specialised health practices.
If social connection is valuable, must it be described as social therapy? If creative expression is meaningful, must it be justified through psychological outcomes? If time in nature brings pleasure, must that pleasure be translated into a measurable health benefit?
I wonder whether our growing interest in therapeutic experiences sometimes reflects a deeper tendency to evaluate ordinary life according to its capacity to improve us.
We ask whether a forest walk reduces stress, whether music improves mood, whether dancing supports emotional regulation, and whether social gatherings contribute to longevity.
These are legitimate scientific questions. But must every meaningful activity demonstrate a therapeutic effect before we consider it valuable?
Could a guided Shinrin-Yoku session be worthwhile simply because people enjoy gathering in nature, sharing time, observing the living world, and experiencing something outside their ordinary routines?
Might there be value in a shared experience even when no measurable improvement occurs?
Perhaps we should distinguish between recognising the health-related potential of human activities and reducing their meaning to health-related outcomes.
There is room for both scientific inquiry and a broader appreciation of life.
When we ask what makes a guided nature experience therapeutic, we are tempted to search for a particular ingredient. Is it the forest environment? The phytoncides? The reduction of stress? The guidance? The invitation? The conversation? The emotional expression? The social bond?
Perhaps the question itself assumes that the experience can be understood by isolating a single dominant cause.
Scientific research must attempt to identify the contributions of different components. That is necessary if we wish to understand mechanisms, compare interventions, and avoid making unsupported claims.
But the lived experience of a guided session may not feel like a collection of separate components.
A participant may experience a moment of silence differently because another person is present. A conversation may feel more meaningful because it follows a shared encounter with a forest. An invitation may become memorable because it reminds someone of a relationship outside the session.
The natural environment, the social group, the participant’s personal history, and the activities undertaken may become interwoven in ways that are difficult to separate retrospectively.
This does not prove that combining them produces greater therapeutic benefits. Whether particular combinations have additive, interactive, or even negative effects remains an empirical question.
Yet it encourages us to investigate guided Shinrin-Yoku as a multidimensional human experience rather than attributing all its potential benefits to the forest alone.
For me, the forest remains central, but it does not exist in isolation from the other dimensions of the encounter.
The people matter. The quality of their interactions matters. The possibility of expressing or withholding thoughts matters. The guide’s sensitivity matters. The participant’s freedom matters.
And perhaps the way these elements come together matters as much as any one element considered independently.
This brings me to a final question.
If a person leaves a guided forest session feeling more connected, what exactly have they connected with?
The forest? Their own experience? Other participants? A memory, a personal value, or a sense of belonging?
Perhaps several of these connections have emerged simultaneously. Perhaps only one. Perhaps none that can be clearly identified.
Rather than assuming what the experience should mean, we might begin by allowing this question to remain open.
The role of the guide may then be understood not as the delivery of a predetermined therapeutic outcome, but as the thoughtful facilitation of conditions in which different forms of meaningful engagement can become possible.
And perhaps the most important insight is that the value of guided sessions may lie not only in what nature offers to the individual, but also in what becomes possible when human beings encounter nature, themselves, and one another within the same shared space.
That possibility deserves further scientific investigation, but it also deserves something more fundamental: our curiosity, our humility, and our willingness to question the assumptions through which we understand the experience.
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Author: Milena A. Guziak, PhD Founder, The Mindful Tourist & Shinrin-Yoku Association