The word “therapeutic science” arises from the Greek: Therapeytikè (the art of assistance) and its use as an ecological hypothesis seems at first a little forced. But the ecosystem services that natural processes provide and “offer” to humans are not only restricted to air, water and food, they are spread on a large family of apparently small and cryptic services which assure, like emerging phenomenon, a well-being status in humans. Why cannot the landscape be considered eligible for a therapy? Dealing with therapeutic landscape means to accept that landscape is not simply a meta-ecosystem organization but a complex entity composed of material and un-material elements. This point requires new paradigms in order to incorporate into the ecological realm concepts that apparently are related to spirituality, philosophy and metaphysics. For this reason the landscape must be considered the result of cognitive processes and not simply a large area or a scenic view of the surroundings. If we embrace the hypothesis of landscape as the result of perception we have to discover the natural elements that elicit well-being status or malaise. Probably the well-being is the accomplishment of a specific function and such function requires a specific eco-field. The eco-field is defined as a carrier of meaning spatial configuration that is requested when a specific function is activated. Genetic or cultural template have to be considered as well, in order to select the appropriated eco-field. Such a process is dynamic and adaptive and changes according to sex, age and culture of the subject. The sense of place, heritage and spiritual values are some of the components that participate to the human well-being. Such elements are embedded into the cognitive landscape that in turn is the result of human choices in environmental use of resources and in the governance. Finally, landscape therapy can be used to increase the recovery after a trauma or a specific disease and can be considered either a frontier of modern medicine and a new frontier in ecological research.
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