THE ECOTHERAPY INSTITUTE

Bill Petrie is a psychotherapist who spent most of his childhood in rural Swaziland, a small Southern African country which, at that time, was poorly developed. This meant for Bill that there was daily access to true wilderness and this extraordinary experience spurned a long-standing interest in the ways in which people benefit both personally and spiritually from intimate contact with nature.

Bill trained initially as a microbiologist and later went on to qualify as a Clinical Psychologist. His (1988) Master's Thesis was on a Jungian understanding of wilderness experience. He has since completed several psychotherapy trainings and trained as a vision quest guide with (the late) Steven Foster and Meredith Little in the USA. Steven and Meredith are widely regarded as being the 'grandparents' of the modern vision quest. In addition to this, Bill has undertaken an arduous training in an African shamanic tradition. He finds that all of these areas of interest have contributed to a rich understanding of nature, psychology and spirituality.

For the last ten years Bill has been working with people in nature and he has found this work to be deeply inspiring for all concerned.

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