Green Care: A Conceptual Framework - Frisk i naturen
Green Care: A Conceptual Framework - Frisk i naturen
Green Care: A Conceptual Framework - Frisk i naturen
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The treatment of tuberculosis during the 18th and 19th centuries also<br />
invoked the use of fresh air and sunlight as curative agents (Bird, 2007).<br />
Typical Victorian asylums included outside design features called ‘Airing<br />
Courts’ (walled areas which adjoined the house and were divided into<br />
sections for patient use), grounds for leisure, sports grounds, fields and<br />
sometimes as estate farm. An ethos of asylum regimes featured exercise and<br />
work out of doors and remained so until the mid 20th century (Bird, 2007).<br />
In the same vein, hospitals for more general physical diseases were also<br />
designed with grounds for aiding patient convalescence. Gardening work<br />
was seen as a way of helping people who were recovering from physical<br />
injuries to strengthen and build up damaged bones and muscles. In his<br />
book, The Rehabilitation of the Injured, Colson (1944) describes different<br />
gardening activities that may be used as therapy and lists specific activities<br />
to develop movement in particular joints (pp. x-xvi).<br />
As rehabilitative medicine and care developed, gardening was used to<br />
‘treat’ not only the physically injured but also those with mental health<br />
problems and learning difficulties. It became one of the ‘specific activities’<br />
of occupational therapy as the discipline developed in the 1950s and 60s<br />
and it is still used today. However, the activities used in occupational<br />
therapy have tended to vary according to the availability of facilities and<br />
changing attitudes and it is not known how many occupational therapists in<br />
the UK currently use gardening.<br />
During the 1940s several Therapeutic Communities were established in<br />
rural, farm settings, where the benefits of nature were recognised as being<br />
integral to the therapeutic experience. Therapeutic communities (TCs) are<br />
group-based treatment programmes (i.e. providing group psychotherapy)<br />
which first came to existence in the UK during the Second World War and<br />
now exist in a variety of settings, such as the National Health Service,<br />
the educational and criminal justice systems and the voluntary sector<br />
(Association of Therapeutic Communities, 2009). The Therapeutic<br />
Community movement has grown and whilst not all TCs use natural<br />
settings, many still use farms or gardens as a focus to their work (see, for<br />
example, Hickey, 2008).<br />
Another form of therapeutic communities often in rural settings are the<br />
Camphill Communities founded by Dr Karl König. Konig, inspired by<br />
Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy of anthroposophy (see for example, Steiner,<br />
16 <strong>Green</strong> <strong>Care</strong>: A <strong>Conceptual</strong> <strong>Framework</strong>