The Nature Embedded Mind by Julie Brams: A forest therapy guide’s review
- nbferrara
- Mar 15
- 6 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
If you’re looking for a thoughtful book about forest therapy, forest bathing, ecopsychology and humanity’s relationship with the natural world, The Nature Embedded Mind by Julie Brams offers a deeply reflective exploration of those themes.
Part memoir and part philosophical exploration, the book examines how modern culture has shaped our relationship with nature—and how reconnecting with the natural world may help restore both ecological and emotional balance.
I approached the book not only as a reader, but as a certified forest therapy guide who has experienced the training and philosophy Brams describes.
What is The Nature Embedded Mind about?
The Nature Embedded Mind by Julie Brams explores the idea that humans are not separate from nature but psychologically and biologically embedded within it. Drawing on ecopsychology and forest therapy training, the book examines how reconnecting with the natural world can reshape identity, heal disconnection and restore a sense of belonging within Earth’s living systems.
Quick overview
Title: The Nature Embedded Mind
Author: Julie Brams
Primary themes: Forest therapy, ecopsychology, nature connection, environmental identity
Best for: Readers interested in forest bathing, ecotherapy and nature-based healing practices
Core idea: Humans are not separate from nature—our minds and identities are embedded within the living systems of Earth.
Reading the book after forest therapy training
I began reading The Nature Embedded Mind on the plane ride home from Costa Rica, where I had just completed my four-day training immersion with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT). The immersion is a core part of the certification process for forest therapy guides.
Immersion is a powerful experience. Forest therapy guide trainees come together to be taught by experienced guides and each other and live the practice of forest therapy in a beautiful natural environment isolated from day-to-day life. Participants are invited to slow down, pay attention and reconsider many of the assumptions we carry about ourselves, our relationship with the natural world, and each other.
Brams writes candidly about vulnerability, uncertainty and moments of self-doubt during guide training. Her honesty echoed many of the thoughts and emotions I experienced during my own training, creating an immediate sense of kinship.
As someone who has completed the same certification journey—and who has spent years in psychotherapy navigating depression and anxiety—I recognized something deeply familiar in her reflections.
That vulnerability is part of what makes The Nature Embedded Mind such a compelling book. Rather than presenting ecopsychology as abstract theory, Brams explores it through lived experience.
What is the “nature embedded mind”?
At the heart of The Nature Embedded Mind is a simple but profound idea: modern Western culture has taught us that humans are separate from nature.
Brams proposes a different perspective—that our minds are not separate from nature but embedded within it.
She describes this expanded understanding of identity through the concept of the Earthbody. Just as organs function as part of a larger human body, humans themselves function as part of a larger planetary body:
“…humans are to the Earthbody as kidneys are to the human body. Our kidneys are an organ with a particular purpose for our whole human body, but it doesn't exist or function without the whole body… Similarly, humans are a species with a particular purpose for our Earthbody…”
This metaphor reframes how we think about our place in the world. Rather than seeing humans as separate from nature—or as managers of it—Brams invites us to see ourselves as participants within a living system.
As she writes:
“Continuing to believe that we are separate from Earth is like believing our hand is somehow separate from our body.”
From this perspective, environmental harm has a different meaning. Damage to the planet becomes damage to our larger self.
Grief, loss and our cultural disconnection from nature
I found Bram’s insights on grief in Western culture particularly insightful. She observes that it tends to celebrate youth, acquisition and happiness while treating loss and pain as failures.
“Our civilized culture promotes birth and youthfulness, acquisition and accumulation and eternal bliss as signs of success. Loss and pain are seen as failure, pain being something that should be denied, avoided, numbed or hidden.”
Yet anyone who spends time paying attention to the natural world quickly notices that loss is woven into every ecosystem.
Leaves fall. Branches break. Seasons end. Animals die. Decay feeds new life.
In this sense, the forest may hold a wiser relationship to grief than our culture does.
Brams also highlights something I had never considered before reading this book: ecosystems have historically been conceptualized without humans as participants within them.
Forests, wetlands and grasslands have most often been studied as systems from which humans have been removed conceptually.
After generations of thinking in terms of separation, domination and control, she suggests we may have simply forgotten our role within the ecosystems we inhabit.
She refers to this mindset as conceptual captivity — a way of thinking that promotes domination and consumption not only toward nature but toward one another.
Forest therapy vs. mindfulness meditation
When I describe forest therapy to people, it is sometimes dismissed as simply another mindfulness practice.
Because of this, I appreciated Brams’ distinction between mindfulness meditation and forest therapy:
“Mindfulness meditation is an attentional skill-building practice and forest therapy is a relational skill-building practice.”
Both practices cultivate sensory awareness and presence. But forest therapy focuses specifically on developing a relationship with the more-than-human world — trees, water, soil, wind, animals and the many beings that share our landscapes.
This relational approach invites curiosity and sensory exploration while expanding our sense of belonging within the larger community of life.
In practice, forest therapy often takes the form of guided forest bathing walks, where participants slow down, engage their senses and build a deeper relationship with the natural world — and with each other. If you’re new to the practice, you can learn more about what forest therapy is and how it works here.
The role of the forest therapy guide
As a certified forest therapy guide myself, I was especially interested in Brams’ reflections on the role of the guide.
She describes guiding as a form of leadership rooted in openness and acceptance:
“In this model, a leader is someone who creates a space where anything is possible, and everything is accepted.”
Rather than directing participants toward specific insights, the guide creates conditions where experiences can emerge naturally.
“Each question that arises in the forest is the forest beckoning. It's Earth starting a conversation that, if answered by the guide, would be a missed opportunity for a relationship to begin and/or deepen.”
Guiding forest therapy walks requires humility. The guide does not provide answers but instead helps participants discover their own relationships with the natural world.
Brams also offers a striking perspective on holding space for another person:
“Perhaps the most compassionate thing you can do is simply listen. Perhaps in bearing witness to someone's story, without criticism or validation, you allow them to become their most authentic selves.”
In a culture that often urges us to fix, advise or respond, this form of presence can feel quietly radical—and challenging to embody.
Brams describes how her immersion trainer, Ben Page, encouraged participants to remain curious rather than searching for immediate answers. He referred to this practice as “living the question.”
Living the question invites comfort with uncertainty and encourages a way of being that is playful, attentive and open to discovery.
Like Brams, I am still unpacking how much of my own thinking has been shaped by cultural expectations of certainty, productivity and control.
Learning to let go of some of that “taming,” as she and ANFT call it, feels essential to the work of guiding others in relationship with the forest.
Rewilding our relationship with Earth
Throughout the book, Brams returns to a hopeful invitation: reconnecting with nature may help us rediscover a healthier way of being in the world.
She writes:
“As more people step courageously and unashamedly into connection with nature, it paves the way for all of us to remember and enjoy our natural way of being in the world. We can give each other permission and encouragement to rewild ourselves.”
Forest therapy and forest bathing invite people to step away from the pace and pressures of modern life and rediscover a slower, more relational way of being in the world—one rooted in curiosity, sensory awareness and connection with our larger Earthbody, the more-than-human world described in ANFT training.
Seen in this light, the nature connection fostered through forest therapy is not simply a personal wellness practice. Brams suggests that it may be the kind of cultural shift needed to repair not only our relationship with the planet but also our relationships with ourselves and one another.
The Nature Embedded Mind helps explain why forest therapy experiences are so needed: they create conditions where people can slow down long enough to remember something many of us have forgotten—that we belong to, and within, the living world.
If reading about forest therapy sparks your curiosity, you can also experience it firsthand through guided forest therapy walks in Rochester, Minnesota.
