Is there a relationship between our mental health and the environment?

Introduction by Ben Pile, a freelance science writer with a particular interest in the politics and science of climate change. Visit his blog at www.climate-resistance.org. From October he will study politics and philosophy at York University.

According to Richard Louv, futurist and journalist, an epidemic of “nature deficit disorder” is afflicting children whose sedentary and urban existences deprive them of an essential relationship with the great outdoors.

http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2005/06/02/Louv/index.html

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/04/14/midday1/

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/wellbeing/story/0,,2095628,00.html

The 2007 Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution suggested that urbanisation was a risk factor in mental health, and that greater access to parkland would benefit public health by reducing obesity, and even antisocial behaviour.

http://www.rcep.org.uk/urban/report/urban-environment.pdf

The mental health charity, Mind, has extolled the virtues of “Ecotherapy” and organised a lobbying campaign for an early day motion to raise awareness amongst healthcare professionals and carers about its positive effects on “self esteem”, and “a general sense of well being”.

http://www.mind.org.uk/NR/rdonlyres/D9A930D2-30D4-4E5B-BE79-1D401B804165/0/ecotherapy.pdf

A recent study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that for every degree above 18 degrees C, there was a 3.8% rise in all suicides and a 5.0% rise in violent suicide.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6925882.stm

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/191/2/106

The perspectives offered by these studies suggest that humans are highly vulnerable to their environments, and that urban development itself is a form of pollution which makes us mentally ill, leading to a range of physical conditions and abnormal behaviour.

But do these studies reveal inevitable and insurmountable problems with industrial society? Or are they attempts to make simple prejudices and political environmentalism superficially plausible, using scientific language? Do the problems identified in these studies even exist, or is there a tendency to pathologise generalised feelings of dissatisfaction and social problems, because contemporary politics gives few other ways of addressing such matters?