This post was originally written in French and can be viewed here.
Part I/Isabelle Boucq
This is the first post in a series of three in which HTI regular contributors will share indications that nature-based interventions are getting increasing recognition and traction in their part of the world. Let’s begin this journey in France.
Let me start by introducing Barbara Frederickson who might seem miles away from our topic of nature-based interventions and horticultural therapy. Please bear with me. Several years ago, I heard Frederickson at a conference on Positive Psychology in the French city of Angers and her presentation still resonates with me. A professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and principal investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab (PEPLab), she is well known for developing the concept of micro moments of love.
“Perhaps most challenging of all, love is neither lasting nor unconditional. The radical shift we need to make is this: Love, as your body experiences it, is a micro-moment of connection shared with another. And decades of research now show that love, seen as these micro-moments of positive connection, fortifies the connection between your brain and your heart and makes you healthier.” It can seem surprising that an experience that lasts just a micro-moment can have any lasting effect on your health and longevity. Yet there’s an important feedback loop at work here, an upward spiral between your social and your physical well-being. That is, your micro-moments of love not only make you healthier, but being healthier also builds your capacity for love. Little by little, love begets love by improving your health. And health begets health by improving your capacity for love”, she wrote in her book Love 2.0 published in 2013.
When fellow blog writer and HTI graduate/faculty, Colleen Griffin, HTR suggested we write on a shared topic from three different cultural perspectives, the idea of collecting and spreading positive news, in an atmosphere highly focused on anxiety-provoking information, was part of her purpose. Our discussion brought to mind Frederickson’s micro moments of love. In a small way, our series aims at bringing you news that will foster optimism and micro moments of love based on many examples of deep connection between people and plants, people and the greater living world.
An October Harvest of Reasons to Hope
In France, two events that took place in early October provided national signs of recognition for social and therapeutic horticulture. On October 3-4, over 160 participants gathered in the city of Lyon for a conference co-sponsored by the Fédération Française Jardins Nature et Santé (French Federation Gardens, Nature and Health) and several partners. The event held at Lyon’s Woman-Mother-Child Hospital was the occasion for attendees to hear stimulating presentations on the link between nature and health, network with other like-minded professionals and visit therapeutic gardens in the Lyon area. To some extent, this French conference echoed the International People Plant Symposium (IPPS) 2024 which took place in Reading, England this summer and which HTI co-sponsored. Those who traveled to Reading were able to share their joy at attending the event through testimonies and photos posted online, helping others take part in the event vicariously.
On October 10-12, the second graduating class of the Diplôme Universitaire Santé et Jardins (a special continuing education university degree) offered by the Saint-Etienne School of Medicine defended their thesis in front of a jury (full disclosure, I was honored to be a member of that jury). This 84-hour course aims at encouraging health professionals and allies to reintroduce green spaces into healthcare facilities by providing them a theoretical, evidence-based framework. Among the professionals graduating from the program this year were a nurse now employed as a full-time horticultural therapist in the psychiatric hospital where she initiated a therapeutic garden as well as a clinical psychologist who is currently designing a garden which will be accessible to various groups for therapeutic, pedagogical and social purposes.
Let’s point out that this first-of-a-kind training in France is a continuation of one of country’s most exemplary therapeutic gardens housed in the psychiatric unit of the Saint-Etienne teaching hospital. This garden, “Le Jardin des Mélisses”, was the ground for a study released this summer in Scientific Reports. The results of “Impact of horticultural therapy on patients admitted to psychiatric wards, a randomised, controlled and open trial” argue in favor of integrating horticultural therapy into psychiatric nursing practices, particularly to reduce anxiety. This study is the outcome of a long-term research project that received Roger Ulrich’s feedback in 2019 during a symposium in Saint-Etienne where he was the keynote speaker. The study is also a welcome boost for the young French horticultural therapy community and beyond.
The “Speaker of the House” Visits a Therapeutic Garden
In October 2023, Théophile Roussel psychiatric hospital in the city of Montesson near Paris received an unusual visitor. Then the president of the Assemblée nationale, that is to say the French equivalent of the Speaker of the House, Yaël Braun-Pivet paid a visit to the therapeutic garden established in the hospital several years ago and heard about the plans to create a therapeutic farm on the grounds. She came accompanied by health officials. While the impact of such official visits remain uncertain, the hope is that this shared moment was able to raise awareness about the benefits of horticultural therapy, in this case for children, teenagers and adults facing mental health issues.
On the Way to Nature Prescription
France is still a ways from green prescription. But there are signs of hope in this area as well. In Belgium, a pilot project has garnered a lot of interest. Nolwenn Lechien, a nurse, started a nature prescription program with several doctors in an integrative health center in the city of Sprimont. Patients are encouraged to join a 2-month program of activities to be carried out in nature. They are provided a booklet to monitor their progress. Group activities, including walks, mindfulness, fitness, plant and bird discovery, are also proposed every week and supervised by volunteers from the center.
In France, Terre d’Hippocrate holds similar promises. This association started by general practitioners, cardiologists and agronomists is testing the integration of a free, preventive health strategy into the treatment of chronic diseases. This strategy is built around a shared space – the garden – and combines gardening activities, adapted physical activity and nutritional workshops. Terre d’Hippocrate “aims to create conditions and an environment conducive to improving the long-term quality of life of people suffering from a chronic disease” in and around the city of Gap in the Alps. In early October, Terre d’Hippocrate was featured in a news program on national public television, putting innovative nature-based interventions in the limelight.
Les Jardins de l’Humanite based in the Landes region of France since 2016, also reports a notable breakthrough: The medical prescription of horticultural therapy by general practitioners. “I’ve been working on this since 2019, and following a meeting with GP I trained in May and the project starts this autumn,” explains Estelle Alquier, founder of Les Jardins de l’Humanite. “Two GPs and a neurologist are now prescribing sessions to some of their patients. We worked out the project together, and the therapeutic protocol and the follow-up. I’m looking into the possibility of partial or total reimbursement. The project is supported by the European Union.”
The Power of Books
In 2022, Michel Le Van Quyen had a good run with his book “Cerveau et nature” (Brain and nature). As a neuroscientist, he set out to gather the current scientific evidence linking health and nature and explaining it to the general public. This is a much needed exercise to comfort what many people instinctively express about feeling better, less anxious and more relaxed during and after a walk in the forest or time in a garden.
Other books currently in the works will bring attention to the plant people connection. In 2021, Romane Glotain set out on a Tour de France on her bike to visit over 40 therapeutic gardens around the country. She is currently putting the final touch on a written account of that amazing adventure. You can get a taste of this unusual Tour de France in this inspiring video.
Christine Butin, a former florist who discovered horticultural therapy following an accident and is a current board member of the Fédération Française Jardins Nature et Santé, is working on a book about the power of flowers from many perspectives. I am looking forward to sitting down with both those books as moments of sharing and connection with others. These books remind me of one of the most inspiring and heartwarming book I have read on this topic and that I enjoy going back to occasionally: “The Well Gardened Mind: Rediscovering Nature in the Modern World” by the British psychiatrist and gardener Sue Stuart Smith. Reading as a variety of micro moment of love and connection.
