ABSTRACT
Horticultural therapy is a well-established community intervention in mental health, veteran, refugee and other settings. This chapter brings together the experience of a group therapist and a community gardener and recounts the work that they have done in various garden and horticulture groups, looking at the balance between nature, therapy and relationships. At the centre of the chapter is the role of nature itself as a context in which survivors make connections with themselves, their histories, the world around them and to others. Groups in nature are considered as fluid and flexible spaces in which survivors, therapists and gardeners can work alongside each other, in closer and more distant physical and psychological proximity, with nature as a mediating and healing context and active component. Case examples are used to show how these groups can offer a safer and less threatening therapeutic space for survivors who may struggle to engage in more direct talking therapy.
