When Does Nature Become Therapy? Reflections on Seven Years of Questioning, Learning, and Letting Go.

Behind the research article: A personal reflection on forests, science, professional identity, and the uncertainty of what we think we know.

Writing my recently published article, When Does Nature Become Therapy? Reconsidering Therapeutic Experience, Agency, Professional Guidance, and Commercialisation in Shinrin-Yoku, Forest Bathing and Forest Therapy, stirred various emotions within me. Some were familiar, others less so. It has been seven years since I left my university job in Kyoto, Japan, to pursue what I am doing today. And now, looking back, I find myself asking a question that perhaps I have never fully answered: What convinced me to make that decision? Was it ever a matter of being convinced? Perhaps it was something closer to an inner knowing, gradually emerging from my experiences in nature. Or perhaps there was one particularly powerful encounter that changed something within me. I cannot say for certain. It might just as well have been the cumulative effect of countless encounters with forests over the years.

And when I speak of encounters, I mean even the smallest ones. Pausing to observe an ant and following its direction, wondering where it is going and what it is doing. Noticing a spider hanging quietly from its beautifully constructed web. Standing beneath a tree, looking at the movement of leaves, or simply becoming aware of the light filtering through the forest canopy. Yet perhaps the most important encounters were not with the ants, spiders, trees, or forests themselves, but with myself.

The interesting thing about a journey is that it rarely begins at a single point. What we eventually call a decision may have been forming through numerous experiences, encounters, questions, and influences, many of which we were not even consciously aware of at the time.

I remember my first encounters with the field of Shinrin-Yoku. And I must say, I was rather skeptical. One of the first questions I asked was why anyone would need a guide to experience a forest. Why should something that seems so natural to human beings suddenly require professional guidance? I also questioned some of the early scientific studies I encountered. Having worked in academia, I found myself examining their methodologies, participant numbers, interpretations, and conclusions. How could a study involving, for example, only ten participants support such broad claims about the extraordinary effects of forests on human health? Of course, small exploratory studies have their place in science. They may offer important observations, raise questions, and provide a foundation for further investigation. But I was uncomfortable with the certainty with which some findings were being communicated, particularly when preliminary results seemed to become general promises of therapeutic benefits.

Now, in retrospect, I can see how conflicted I was. Now, I can understand better.

On the one hand, I questioned the scientific explanations and the language used to describe the benefits of forest experiences. On the other hand, I had already undergone deeply meaningful experiences in forests myself. Experiences that I could barely describe, let alone explain through the physiological measurements commonly presented in Shinrin-Yoku/Forest Therapy research.

I felt something changing within me. I began to feel better. But what exactly was happening? Was it a physiological response? A psychological shift? A change in how I perceived myself and the world around me? Or perhaps an interaction between all these processes? One possibility I continue to consider is that when our nervous system becomes calmer, our experience of the surrounding world may change as well. Perhaps we become more receptive, more attentive, less occupied by the constant movement of our thoughts. Perhaps a quieter state allows us to notice what was already there but had previously escaped our attention. We may find ourselves approaching familiar experiences from a different perspective, with greater openness or curiosity. This is one possible explanation, not a complete one. The relationship between physiological regulation, conscious awareness, attention, and meaningful experience is far more complex than such a simple description suggests.

Yet it raises an interesting question: Is it only the forest that changes our experience, or does our changing state of mind also transform how we encounter the forest? And more importantly, can we meaningfully separate the two?

Another matter that has troubled me for many years is the word therapy itself. In Japanese, there is the term 療法 (ryōhō), composed of two kanji: 療, associated with treatment or healing, and 法, meaning method or way. There is also セラピー (serapī), a borrowed term derived from the English word therapy. Both have appeared in discussions of forest-related health practices, including the terminology surrounding forest therapy. I began to wonder why particular terms were adopted, why some became more prominent than others, and what these changes might reveal about the evolution of the field. Was the adoption of a foreign-derived term simply a matter of linguistic development, or did it also reflect changing cultural expectations, professional positioning, and commercial interests?

Could terminology itself become part of a marketing strategy? I cannot confidently attribute such linguistic changes to commercialisation alone. Language evolves through numerous social, cultural, institutional, and historical processes. Nevertheless, I believe the question deserves consideration, particularly when terminology begins to influence how a practice is promoted, who is considered qualified to provide it, and what people are encouraged to expect from it. An even greater source of disagreement for me has been the distinction drawn between Shinrin-Yoku, commonly translated as forest bathing, and forest therapy. When I began examining Japanese literature more closely, I found that these concepts were often presented as closely connected developments rather than entirely separate practices. My interpretation was that the terminology had evolved alongside scientific investigation, measurement technologies, institutional initiatives, and attempts to explain forest-related experiences through physiological and psychological research.

Yet, in some Western contexts, I encountered a rather different understanding. I met people who argued that forest bathing and forest therapy were fundamentally different activities, and that the latter should be reserved for professionals such as psychotherapists, psychologists, or other practitioners with particular qualifications. I found myself questioning this distinction.

To be clear, I do not question the importance of professional competence, clinical responsibilities, or the ethical boundaries that distinguish psychological treatment from non-clinical nature-based activities. These distinctions matter enormously, particularly when working with vulnerable individuals or making specific therapeutic claims. But I question whether such professional distinctions necessarily justify treating the historical concepts of Shinrin-Yoku, forest bathing, and forest therapy as entirely separate experiences. In Japan, professional training may distinguish different levels or roles, including forest therapy guides and forest therapy therapists. Yet distinguishing professional responsibilities is not necessarily the same as establishing that the underlying forest experiences belong to wholly different categories. And so I kept returning to a more fundamental question.

Who, or what, makes an experience therapeutic?

Is it the forest? The person experiencing it? The guide? The intention behind the activity? The way the experience is interpreted? Or an interaction among these elements? I have always felt that the forest is, in a sense, a free agent. It does not exist for the purpose of providing therapy, nor does it require a professional to become meaningful to the person entering it. A human being also has agency. We bring our histories, expectations, emotions, memories, intentions, and individual capacities into the experience. We are not separate from nature, observing it from somewhere outside. We are part of it. Both the human experience and the natural environment contribute to what emerges through their interaction. This understanding has influenced why, at The Mindful Tourist, we have not adopted a rigid conceptual separation between Shinrin-Yoku, forest bathing, and forest therapy. We recognise differences in professional roles, methods, intentions, and responsibilities, but we also acknowledge the historical and experiential relationships between these terms.

My questions did not end there.

I also began questioning the increasingly common definition of Shinrin-Yoku as something that is not simply a walk in the forest, but rather an immersion in nature through the senses. What exactly does that mean?

Is walking through a forest while observing its surroundings not already a sensory experience? Must a person consciously direct attention toward particular sensations for the experience to qualify as Shinrin-Yoku? And who determines which way of being in a forest is sufficiently attentive, meaningful, or restorative? The more I examined these questions, the more complicated they became.

My reading also led me beyond contemporary Japanese and Western literature. I encountered earlier Russian-language discussions surrounding phytoncides and their proposed therapeutic applications. This raised further questions about how ideas travel between cultures, how older concepts are reformulated, and how scientific terminology can shape the recognition and legitimacy of particular practices. None of this is intended to diminish the contributions of the researchers, institutions, or practitioners who helped develop this field.

Quite the opposite.

Without their work, I would probably not be doing what I do today, either personally or professionally. Scientific research has provided valuable insights into human responses to natural environments, and professional communities have contributed to education, accessibility, and ethical awareness. But appreciating those contributions does not require us to accept every interpretation without questioning it. And perhaps this is where another, more personal part of my journey begins.

Over the years, I have found myself in disagreement with many people. Sometimes these disagreements were stimulating and constructive. At other times, they became frustrating, particularly when I felt that certain definitions or professional boundaries were being defended with great certainty. I began noticing how strongly we can identify with particular concepts, professional roles, institutions, or schools of thought. Once an idea becomes part of our identity, questioning that idea may begin to feel like questioning the person who holds it. And I started wondering whether a certain sense of righteousness was emerging in these exchanges.

The belief that my understanding is the correct one.

That my interpretation is more legitimate.

That I know what this practice truly is.

But then I had to ask myself an uncomfortable question.

Was I doing exactly the same thing?

After all, I have my own name, history, profession, qualifications, age, and numerous other labels through which I describe myself. I am 43 years old. I am a researcher, an educator, a writer, and a founder of organisations. These are all forms of identification. They communicate something about my life, but they do not necessarily capture the entirety of who I am.

And the same  may apply to our intellectual positions. We adopt an understanding, become attached to it, and gradually begin to defend it. Sometimes without noticing how strongly we have come to identify with it. The question then becomes not only whether another person is right or wrong, but how willing I am to examine the certainty of my own convictions. Can I disagree without turning disagreement into a struggle over identity? Can I recognise value in an opposing perspective without feeling that my own understanding is threatened? Can I hold an interpretation with confidence while remaining open to the possibility that it is incomplete?

I would like to think so. But am I always successful? I am not sure. What I am trying to do, however, is become more attentive to the emergence of that attachment. Rather than constantly creating new certainties, I try to question the ones I already hold. Rather than immediately defending an interpretation, I try to understand where it came from and what assumptions sustain it. This does not mean abandoning critical thinking or avoiding disagreement. There are times when arguments need to be challenged, evidence examined, and professional claims questioned. But perhaps we can do so without turning every disagreement into a declaration of who we are.

And this brings me back to the article.

Writing When Does Nature Become Therapy? was not simply an academic exercise. It required me to revisit seven years of professional development, questions, encounters, disagreements, and personal experiences that have shaped my relationship with forests and the field of Shinrin-Yoku. In some ways, writing the article felt like bringing these experiences into one place, attempting to give them structure and examine them more carefully. And now that it has been published, I feel a certain relief. But interestingly, I do not feel that I have arrived at a conclusion.

Instead, I seem to have even more questions.

This is why writing has become so important to me. It allows me to examine what I think I know, put it into words, and then encounter those words almost as though they belonged to someone else. Sometimes I recognise something that feels deeply true to my experience. At other times, I notice an assumption, a contradiction, or an uncertainty that I had previously overlooked. The act of writing does not necessarily resolve these tensions. Sometimes it makes them more visible.

I cannot possibly express everything that has passed through my mind while preparing and publishing this article. There is too much history, too much emotion, and perhaps too much that I have not yet understood. And what do I hope the article will accomplish? I am not entirely sure. I certainly do not expect everyone to agree with my interpretations. Nor do I wish to replace one rigid set of definitions with another. Perhaps my hope is simply that readers will reconsider some of the categories we have come to accept so readily. That they will question how we assign names and meanings to human experiences, how professional identities influence those meanings, and how easily language can create distinctions that appear more certain than they really are. Perhaps they will also consider that human experience is not always as neatly organised as the words we use to describe it.

We name things. We classify them. We construct definitions and establish boundaries. Such processes can be useful, sometimes necessary. Yet the reality they attempt to describe may remain far more fluid, interconnected, and uncertain. I suppose this is part of being human. We seek understanding, but we also live within the limitations of our understanding.

Seven years after leaving my university job in Kyoto, I still find myself asking many of the questions that accompanied me at the beginning of this journey. Why do we need a guide? What makes an experience therapeutic? What belongs to the forest, and what belongs to the person experiencing it? Who decides what counts as therapy? And how much of what we believe is shaped by the concepts and identities we have created?

Well, we do need guides! That’s for another story.