ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on newly emerging sub-fields of interest within geography as well as work in both environmental psychology and philosophy to consider how they might help to broaden people understanding of the complex relationship between people, places and well-being. Geographical narratives around therapeutic landscapes have much in common with some of the work in environmental psychology. The chapter describes a range of studies that focus on people's engagement with everyday – or 'common places' – to demonstrate how people's interrelationship with the natural environment may shift from one that can be epitomised as restorative or therapeutic to one characterised by fear or risk. Natural settings are seen as discrete from the built environment in which many people live in that they consist of rich and coherent ecosystems that can be both observed and explored. Phobic responses to landscapes or nature represent the extreme end of a spectrum of responses to the environment.
