ABSTRACT
Restoration involves beneficial changes, but not every benefit warrants description as ‘restorative’. Some benefits realised in a particular environment involve deepening or strengthening capabilities for meeting everyday demands. A person may for example become more self-reliant or self-confident, acquire new skills or gain in physical fitness. I have used the word ‘instorative’ to distinguish this other family of benefits from restorative benefits (Hartig et al., 1996).1 To be sure, the possibility of relations between restorative and instorative benefits raises intriguing questions. For example, how might a restorative experience lead into an instorative experience in the same environment? Rather than pursue such questions here, I simply want to emphasise the value of the distinction as a means to discourage overly broad conceptions of restoration and its attendant benefits. Confusion about what restoration involves can hardly help efforts to understand restorative environments as health resources.
