The Group EcoWellness Model of Change: A Conceptual Framework for Facilitating Groups in Nature

Advancing the association for humanistic counseling principles through the serious leisure perspective

“…(2000), that many current wellness counseling books are based on (e.g., Ohrt et al., 2019), explicitly communicates that leisure is a task of lesser importance (e.g., “Adler referred to leisure, or play, as a minor life task” Myers et al., 2000, p. 256) and define leisure as nothing more than a clustering of activities completed in free time, with exercise noted as an essential means of reducing the effects of stress. Likewise, ecowellnes counseling models provide nature‐based interventions grounded in multidisciplinary wellness research but do not clarify leisure with precision (see, Reese & Lewis, 2019; Reese & Myers, 2012; Reese & Gosling, 2020). The Encyclopedia of Counseling , which in the United States is used as a study guide for both the National Counseling Examination and the Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Examination, provides the following inadequate definition of leisure “Leisure time is defined as time away from work in which the individual has the freedom to choose what he or she would like to do” (Rosenthal, 2017, p. 321).…”

“…Future research can investigate if the SLP can be integrated into various humanistic counseling approaches, such as in expressive arts (Rogers, 2011), used as a framework to expand the “coping self” component of the indivisible self‐model of wellness counseling (Myers & Sweeney, 2004; Ohrt et al., 2019) or to add a healing element to ecowellness counseling (Reese & Lewis, 2019; Reese & Myers, 2012; Reese & Gosling, 2020). Since there is research evidence that serious leisure and project‐based leisure can result in flow experiences (Chang, 2017; Heo et al., 2010; Mannell, 1993; Stebbins, 2010, 2020) and that the “coping self” component of the indivisible self‐model of wellness counseling also has connections to flow theory (Myers & Sweeney, 2004), it makes sense that the SLP be integrated into the “coping self.” In addition, and from an existential‐humanistic perspective, further research can explore the phenomenological relationship between the SLP and Frankl's (1988) centrifugal and centripetal leisure dichotomy to investigate if serious and project leisure might have greater relevance with centripetal leisure and finding meaning/purpose in life.…”