The Well-Gardened Mind

Starred review from May 15, 2020
An analysis of and tribute to the beneficial effects of gardening on the heart and mind. Stuart-Smith--a veteran psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and devoted gardener in the U.K.--employs several tactics in her debut work. She relates her personal history with gardening (she didn't care for it initially); explores the history of gardening in various cultures and contexts; describes how gardening has been used in a variety of therapeutic situations--including such institutions as mental hospitals and prisons--and in ravaged communities in need of restoration (urban farms and gardens). The author notes that she'd once been an English major, and many of her allusions are sturdy confirmation: William Wordsworth, who is prominent early in the text; Henry David Thoreau; Wilfred Owen; Michel de Montaigne, who wanted to die in his garden; and Virginia Woolf are some who stroll through the garden of Stuart-Smith's text. Also present are numerous luminaries in psychology (Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Erik Erikson, and Jean Piaget), medicine (Oliver Sacks), and researchers in a variety of fields. Readers might think--based on the title and subject matter--that this is some kind of self-help, New Age text. It's not. The author delivers a thoroughly researched text based on her deep and wide reading about the history of gardening, her visits to many of the therapeutic garden sites she mentions, and her interviews with many people, professionals and patients alike. Yes, there are a few sentences that, taken out of context, sound a little bit precious ("an environment can be a spiritual as well as a physical home"), but most of these sentences blossom in beds of substantial research. Stuart-Smith ends with a tight chapter about the climate crisis and its effects on both our physical and psychological health. "Just as the state of the planet is unsustainable," she writes, "so our lifestyles have become psychologically unsustainable." Full of surprise and wonder--and relevant research.

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June 1, 2020
What happens to the mind when one's hands are working in soil? Is there a physiological and psychological component that can be measured and observed as one works in a garden? For noted psychiatrist and psychotherapist Stuart-Smith, the act of gardening provides a rich field in which to study the benefits that incur to human nature through an immersion in Mother Nature. Along with her garden-designer husband, Tom, who created the acclaimed Barn Garden in Hertfordshire, England, Stuart-Smith takes her personal experiences in this lush and ever-changing environment and applies them to her professional roles as a teacher and consultant in the mental health field. From its healing powers in times of bereavement to its calming influences in times of crisis, horticultural therapy is shown to have benefits for those suffering from trauma, grief, loss, and discontentment. Wise, insightful, and eloquent, Stuart-Smith's soulful and sensitive treatise on horticulture's healing properties is a well-positioned book for the current age of anxiety, offering a personally relevant perspective on how to cope in troubled times.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)