ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on psychological aspects of Rights of Nature. By comparing the idea of Rights of Nature with a model, created by Per Espen Stoknes, on how to overcome psychological barriers to environmental/climate action, the conclusion is that the Rights of Nature discourse seems to be useful in overcoming these barriers to action. The chapter also presents ecopsychology, the study of psychological processes that tie us to the world or separate us from it, and suggests that ecopsychology deepens our understanding of the Rights of Nature by (1) an integrated theory of psyche, nature, and society; (2) an understanding of the interconnection between psychological/existential, ecological, and social crises; (3) an understanding of modern civilisation as a traumatised culture that uses consumerism as a temporary and dysfunctional strategy; (4) practices that let the interconnectedness between humans and the rest of nature become an embodied, lived reality; and (5) the synergetic effects of letting different movements come together. The chapter also notes that Rights of Nature have an important implication for ecopsychology by offering a language of rights that can open new possibilities for making ecopsychological perspectives more relevant on a societal level.
