In this talk, Sue Stuart-Smith, a distinguished psychiatrist and avid gardener offers an inspiring and consoling work about the healing effects of gardening and its ability to decrease stress and foster mental well-being in our everyday lives.
The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the “real” life that lies outside. But when we get our hands in the earth we connect with the cycle of life in nature through which destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal. Drawing on her grandfather’s return from World War I, Sigmund Freud’s obsession with flowers and interviews with people from gardening projects in prisons, hospitals and in the community. Sue will look at how gardening can answer to deep existential needs and discuss findings from recent research showing that connecting to nature alleviates symptoms of anxiety, stress and depression.
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Sue Stuart-Smith is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and author of The Well Gardened Mind, a Sun-day Times Bestseller. She studied English Literature at the University of Cambridge before qualifying as a doctor and working in the National Health Service for many years, becoming the lead clinician for psychotherapy in Hertfordshire. She currently teaches at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in London and is a consultant at DocHealth, a not for profit, psychotherapeutic consultation service for doctors. She is married to Tom Stuart-Smith, the celebrated garden designer, and, over thirty years together, they have created the wonderful Barn Garden in Hertfordshire. Her book, The Well Gardened Mind, analyses the relationship between gardening and mental health.
Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and a link to the recorded session, available for one week, will be sent shortly afterwards.
