{"id":{"repo_id":"auckland-tech","oai_identifier":"oai:openrepository.aut.ac.nz:10292/15109"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/auckland-tech/oai:openrepository.aut.ac.nz:10292/15109","repository":{"repo_id":"auckland-tech","name":"AUT University","base_url":"https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Landings: A Settler Descendent Relationship to Land","abstract":"Mental wellbeing is influenced by relationships with nature and land. The climate crisis is increasingly recognised as impacting mental health. In Aotearoa New Zealand, ecological loss occurs against a colonised landscape; relationship to land is entangled with historical trauma. Practicing relational psychotherapy within this context requires attention to the way that relationship to land is experienced. This heuristic self-search inquiry examines the experience of relationship to land of a settler-descended psychotherapy trainee. Drawing on Moustakas and Sela-Smith, I use a six-phase process, driven by journaling, poetry, focussing, dreams, and reflective self-inquiry and self-dialogue, to explore my experience. The resulting creative synthesis explores ambivalence and covert hostility within my experience of relationship to land. Four themes are identified: the existential distress and resentment of inevitable death; my relationship to my colonising ancestors; powerlessness, trauma, and resentment in the climate crisis; and how gender and queerness shape my relationship to land. The distress, resentment, and covert hostility to land are uncomfortable to experience; relationship to land may hold defensive aspects of avoidance, denial, and disengagement. As a self-inquiry, this research is not directly generalisable to others; however, it demonstrates the potential complexity and ambivalence of relationship to land, with implications for ecopsychology, mental health, and climate activism.","abstract_html":"Mental wellbeing is influenced by relationships with nature and land. The climate crisis is increasingly recognised as impacting mental health. In Aotearoa New Zealand, ecological loss occurs against a colonised landscape; relationship to land is entangled with historical trauma. Practicing relational psychotherapy within this context requires attention to the way that relationship to land is experienced. This heuristic self-search inquiry examines the experience of relationship to land of a settler-descended psychotherapy trainee. Drawing on Moustakas and Sela-Smith, I use a six-phase process, driven by journaling, poetry, focussing, dreams, and reflective self-inquiry and self-dialogue, to explore my experience. The resulting creative synthesis explores ambivalence and covert hostility within my experience of relationship to land. Four themes are identified: the existential distress and resentment of inevitable death; my relationship to my colonising ancestors; powerlessness, trauma, and resentment in the climate crisis; and how gender and queerness shape my relationship to land. The distress, resentment, and covert hostility to land are uncomfortable to experience; relationship to land may hold defensive aspects of avoidance, denial, and disengagement. As a self-inquiry, this research is not directly generalisable to others; however, it demonstrates the potential complexity and ambivalence of relationship to land, with implications for ecopsychology, mental health, and climate activism.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Brett, Elizabeth"],"institution":null,"degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022","date_published":"2022","updated_at":"2026-07-27T18:46:13Z","subjects":["Ecopsychology","Ecopsychotherapy","Relationship to land","Settler colonialism","Psychotherapy","Ecofeminism","Queer ecology","Ecological affect","Eco-anxiety","Climate crisis"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["hdl:10292/15109"],"render_values":[{"text":"hdl:10292/15109","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":null,"outbound_label":null,"outbound_source":null},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2022"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis/Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Ecopsychology","Ecopsychotherapy","Relationship to land","Settler colonialism","Psychotherapy","Ecofeminism","Queer ecology","Ecological affect","Eco-anxiety","Climate crisis"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["hdl:10292/15109"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.other","label":"Dc Description Other","values":["Mental wellbeing is influenced by relationships with nature and land. The climate crisis is increasingly recognised as impacting mental health. In Aotearoa New Zealand, ecological loss occurs against a colonised landscape; relationship to land is entangled with historical trauma. Practicing relational psychotherapy within this context requires attention to the way that relationship to land is experienced. This heuristic self-search inquiry examines the experience of relationship to land of a settler-descended psychotherapy trainee. Drawing on Moustakas and Sela-Smith, I use a six-phase process, driven by journaling, poetry, focussing, dreams, and reflective self-inquiry and self-dialogue, to explore my experience. The resulting creative synthesis explores ambivalence and covert hostility within my experience of relationship to land. Four themes are identified: the existential distress and resentment of inevitable death; my relationship to my colonising ancestors; powerlessness, trauma, and resentment in the climate crisis; and how gender and queerness shape my relationship to land. The distress, resentment, and covert hostility to land are uncomfortable to experience; relationship to land may hold defensive aspects of avoidance, denial, and disengagement. As a self-inquiry, this research is not directly generalisable to others; however, it demonstrates the potential complexity and ambivalence of relationship to land, with implications for ecopsychology, mental health, and climate activism."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Landings: A Settler Descendent Relationship to Land"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:date.issued":["2022"],"dc:description.other":["Mental wellbeing is influenced by relationships with nature and land. The climate crisis is increasingly recognised as impacting mental health. In Aotearoa New Zealand, ecological loss occurs against a colonised landscape; relationship to land is entangled with historical trauma. Practicing relational psychotherapy within this context requires attention to the way that relationship to land is experienced. This heuristic self-search inquiry examines the experience of relationship to land of a settler-descended psychotherapy trainee. Drawing on Moustakas and Sela-Smith, I use a six-phase process, driven by journaling, poetry, focussing, dreams, and reflective self-inquiry and self-dialogue, to explore my experience. The resulting creative synthesis explores ambivalence and covert hostility within my experience of relationship to land. Four themes are identified: the existential distress and resentment of inevitable death; my relationship to my colonising ancestors; powerlessness, trauma, and resentment in the climate crisis; and how gender and queerness shape my relationship to land. The distress, resentment, and covert hostility to land are uncomfortable to experience; relationship to land may hold defensive aspects of avoidance, denial, and disengagement. As a self-inquiry, this research is not directly generalisable to others; however, it demonstrates the potential complexity and ambivalence of relationship to land, with implications for ecopsychology, mental health, and climate activism."],"dc:identifier":["hdl:10292/15109"],"dc:subject":["Ecopsychology","Ecopsychotherapy","Relationship to land","Settler colonialism","Psychotherapy","Ecofeminism","Queer ecology","Ecological affect","Eco-anxiety","Climate crisis"],"dc:title":["Landings: A Settler Descendent Relationship to Land"],"dc:type":["Thesis/Dissertation"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T18:46:13Z"}