Beth Collier

Beth Collier is a BACP registered Nature-based Psychotherapist and Anthropologist who teaches natural history and woodland living skills. Her work explores relationships with people and with nature. As a therapist Beth works exclusively in natural settings. She has spent many years theorizing our relationships with nature from an applied psychotherapeutic perspective, developing Nature-based Psychotherapy as an orientation of practice for ongoing client work and providing professional training on the therapeutic use of nature through the Nature Therapy School. 

Beth is the founder of Wild in the City, an organization supporting the wellbeing of urban residents, offering experiences in bushcraft, natural history and ecotherapy, using the skills of our ancestors to nurture a deeper connection with the natural world. She has a particular interest in supporting people of color in finding their place in UK natural settings and creates opportunities for the representation of black leadership in nature. Her work has produced ethnographies of our intimate, emotional relationships with nature. This includes ethnography of disconnection and its impact on the development of cultural attitudes which shun nature; experiences of people of color in nature in UK settings and white attitudes to black presence in nature. 

Beth is also a Trustee of the National Park City Foundation, a role in which she leads work on nature, health and cities; a Fellow of the London Environmental Educators Forum and a member of the teaching team at the Wellbeing Faculty of the Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education. She has a background in human rights; she ran a research consultancy for over 8 years working in partnership with UNHCR documenting conditions in refugee producing countries.