Collective Healing Through Nature: Examining Community Ecosessions and Ecotherapy as Earth Justice Practice

Environmental injustice disproportionately harms Black urban communities, intensifying social, economic, and health disparities while deepening social isolation. Grounded in African-centered social work and ecowomanism, this conceptual paper integrates the author’s clinical work of facilitating community “ecosessions” (ecotherapy sessions) with Black-led outdoor collectives. By examining these ecosessions, the growing Black outdoor movement, and Black American nature traditions, this paper demonstrates how African diasporic traditions have long embodied what scholars have formally recognized as ecotherapy. Recognizing this lineage may provide support for practitioners to implement ecotherapy as a culturally affirming intervention, while offering Black communities language to name their existing practices as legitimate healing modalities that address social isolation and environmental harm. Ecotherapy is positioned as a culturally grounded, community-based, trauma-informed, and liberatory intervention to advance Earth-justice, addressing environmental injustice and social isolation, two issues prioritized by the Grand Challenges for Social Work.