In The Lancet, Nova Scholar Susan Prescott and coauthors call for greater inclusion of planetary health into bioethics and biomedical ethics for greater transdisciplinary collaboration to address pressing planetary health challenges.
In Agriculture and Human Values, Nova Scholar Hannah Gosnell and coauthors explore how relational values contribute to the goals of regenerative agriculture.
In Challenges, Nova Scholar Susan Prescott and Fellow Alan C. Logan highlight the significant impacts of dietary choices on personal and planetary health.
The Nova Institute for Health is pleased to welcome Nova Scholar Hannah Gosnell who is working to create more equitable and sustainable global food systems.
In Challenges, speakers from the Nova Campfire, “Beyond Blame and Retribution,” reimagine the criminal justice system considering a planetary health framework and emerging science.
In Challenges, Nova Scholars Susan Prescott and Sara Warber, Invited Faculty David Nelson and Mona El-Sherbini, and coauthors describe the Earthrise Community.
In a cover story for Scientific American, Nova Media Fellow Rowan Jacobsen explores the healing potential of sunlight.
In Grist, Media Fellow Maria Parazo Rose examines how climate projects in Indigenous territories often violate Indigenous rights—and how to move toward more equitable solutions.
In Eos magazine, Nova Media Fellow Virginia Gewin explores the immense economic impact of health issues from wind erosion and dust.
Nova Media Fellow Virginia Gewin reports for Civil Eats on the mounting evidence connecting paraquat to serious human health risks and calls for the EPA to ban the herbicide to protect human health.
Healing is facilitated through safety, persistence, and trust.
Resources support us as we heal. They include reframing, responsibility, and positivity. “Making connections enabled participants to acquire and refine resources and skills that were essential in their healing journey. People also brought their own personal strengths to the journey.”
“Connection to others was an essential part of all the healing journeys.” Humans are social creatures, and even the most introverted of us need close relationships. Friends and family add meaning and value to life and help support us, in good times and bad.
When we experience relational trauma, relationships can feel scary, but reestablishing safety and trust in relationships is where the healing happens. (To be clear, we do not mean reestablishing safety and trust with abusers, but rather finding other healing relationships.)
“When safety and trust had been established, people were able to connect with helpers. The nature of the behaviours of helpers that fostered healing ranged from small acts of kindness to unconditional love.”
Healing probably means different things to different people, but one definition that emerged from the study is: “The re-establishment of a sense of integrity and wholeness.”
Healing was an emergent property that resulted from each individuals’ complex healing journey, a result of bridged connections between resources and relationships. “…they gradually found relief from suffering and began to exhibit emergent characteristics: a sense of hope, self-acceptance, and a desire to help others—the immediate precursors to healing.”
In varying degrees, “they were able to transcend their suffering and in some sense to flourish.”
Suffering is the ongoing pain from wounding.
There is some debate about whether people always experience suffering on the path to healing.
Wounding happens when we experience physical or emotional harm. It can stem from chronic illness or by physical or psychological trauma for which we do not have the tools to cope, or a combination of those factors.
“The degree and quality of suffering experienced by each individual is framed by contextual factors that include personal characteristics, timing of their initial or ongoing wounding in the developmental life cycle and prior and current relationships.”
Characteristics: How predisposed someone may be to wounding/how many tools and resources someone may have to deal with trauma/illness.
Lifestages: Developmental timing plays an important role in the impact of trauma — young children often do not have the same resources as older adults.
Relationships: Relationships can provide solace and support for those suffering, while lack of healthy relationships can prolong suffering.
