Editorial: Invitation for papers: From Ecopsychology Theory, Research and Practice to Environmental Psychology
Stephen Palmer 1 2 3 4 and Siobhain O’Riordan 2 3 4
Citation: Palmer, S., & O’Riordan, S. (2025). Editorial: Invitation for papers: From Ecopsychology Theory, Research and Practice to Environmental Psychology. Journal of Ecopsychology, 5, 1-3. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-5-2025/volume-5-article-1-editorial/
Processing dates: Submitted: 7th June, 2025; Accepted: 7th June, 2025; Published: 7th June, 2025.
Welcome to Volume Five of the Journal of Ecopsychology (JoE). Since its launch in 2021, articles published in the journal have furthered the theory, research and practice of ecopsychology and related fields. We are delighted with the number of submissions we are now receiving from around the world.
Last year we published 10 articles in Volume Four including our own Editorial (Palmer & O’Riordan, 2024). They covered a range of aspects contributing to the advancement of ecopsychology including:
- In “nature’s embrace”: Exploring connection to nature as experienced through wild swimming (Barrable et al., 2024)
- ‘Like walking with a friend’: A grounded theory exploring the tripartite relationship between coach, client and nature in outdoor coaching (Geratz et al., 2024)
- The grass can be greener on the other side’, an idea of using eco-psychotherapy to build resilience towards mental health and a better appreciation for the natural world (Laftah, 2024a)
- Insights on Island Living: Piloting participant-produced photographs (Kras & Keenan, 2024)
- How to increase engagement with environmentalism: Perceived threat, behavioural control, and subjective norms as psychological predictors of eco-activism (Abonyi & McDermott, 2024)
- Effect of spending time in nature and animal contact in preventing depression (Tillmanns & Kraus, 2024)
- ‘Eco-Relaxing in the natural world is for me’, eco-psychotherapy processes in green and blue spaces for all cultures and ages with neurodiverse conditions (Laftah, 2024b)
- People Who Have: Hoarding disorder, ecopsychology, and poetry by prescription (Fiala, 2024)
- Exploring the Influence of Social Circles on the Adoption of Pro-Environmental Behaviors (Ritzenthaler & Sirum, 2024)
Invitation for papers
The Journal of Ecopsychology editorial team invites papers on Ecopsychology’s theory, research, philosophy, and practice. Topics include human-nature relationships, Biophilia hypothesis, Attention Restoration Theory, nature connectedness, climate coaching, eco-wellbeing, shinrin yoku, green/red/blue exercise, urban nature wellbeing, virtual reality, and other related areas.
We will also consider articles on environmental psychology including pro-environmental behaviours, psychological impact of different environments, natural and built environments, perception and cognition, conservation, nature-based solutions and nature networks.
We welcome discussion papers, brief reports, short papers on techniques, case studies, book reviews and conference reports.
Information for contributors on the submission and review process for the JoE are available on the journal website. Here you will see that we have introduced some policy changes from 2025 onwards as follows:
• We will only be taking forward position or opinion papers via invitation from the Editorial Board.
• AI-assisted technologies including Large Language Models (LLMs), chatbots and image creators will not be accepted as co-authors of papers.
• Submissions may now be subject to rejection by the Editor(s), a process referred to as a desk rejection. In such instances, specific reasons for the rejection will not be provided.
Awards
The National Wellbeing Service Ltd is the publisher of the Journal of Ecopsychology, and the team are pleased to announce that it received two awards in recognition of its contributions to mental health education and awareness. The organisation has received the GPH Most Informative Online Mental Health Resource 2025 and the GHP News Mental Health Awareness Excellence Award 2025. These awards highlight National Wellbeing Service Limited’s commitment to providing high-quality, evidence-based mental health resources to individuals, professionals, and organisations worldwide. The company’s online platforms continue to serve as a source of information, offering valuable insights into mental health, wellbeing, stress management, relaxation techniques, eco-psychological interventions and professional training. Up-to-date research is published in our peer reviewed journals. As editors we thank the consulting editors, editorial board, authors and reviewers for their dedication in supporting the Journal of Ecopsychology, without them, these awards would not have been achieved.
Conclusion
The editorial team are looking forward to receiving contributions to the journal. We would like to thank our contributors, reviewers, the Consulting Editors and sub-editor and the International Editorial Board for their on-going support.
For further details about submitting papers, please visit our journal submission webpage. See: https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/submission-review-process
Corresponding author
Stephen Palmer
National Wellbeing Service Ltd
156 Westcombe Hill
London SE3 7DH
email: editor@nationalwellbeingservice.com
Affiliations
1 Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark
2 International Centre for Ecopsychology
3 Institute of Management and Health, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, UK
4 National Wellbeing Service Ltd, UK
Copyright
© 2025, National Wellbeing Service Ltd
Processing dates: Submitted: 7th June, 2025; Accepted: 7th June, 2025; Published: 7th June, 2025.
Funding
None declared.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest in respect to their authorship or the publication of this paper. (However, for links to organisations, see affiliations.)
Acknowledgments
None.
References
Abonyi, A., & McDermott, M. R. (2024). How to increase engagement with environmentalism: Perceived threat, behavioural control, and subjective norms as psychological predictors of eco-activism. Journal of Ecopsychology, 4, 6, 1-16. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-4-2024/volume-4-article-6
Barrable, A., Wünsche, T. U., & Touloumakos, A. K. (2024). In “nature’s embrace”: Exploring connection to nature as experienced through wild swimming. Journal of Ecopsychology, 4, 2, 1-13. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-4-2024/volume-4-article-2
Fiala, R. J. (2024). People Who Have: Hoarding disorder, ecopsychology, and poetry by prescription. Journal of Ecopsychology, 4, 9, 1-5. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-4-2024/volume-4-article-9
Geratz, C., Papworth, J., & Palmer, S. (2024). ‘Like walking with a friend’: A grounded theory exploring the tripartite relationship between coach, client and nature in outdoor coaching. Journal of Ecopsychology, 4, 3, 1-13. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-4-2024/volume-4-article-3
Kras, N., & Keenan, J. (2024). Insights on Island Living: Piloting participant-produced photographs. Journal of Ecopsychology, 4, 5, 1-11. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-4-2024/volume-4-article-5
Laftah, O. (2024a). In ‘The grass can be greener on the other side’, an idea of using eco-psychotherapy to build resilience towards mental health and a better appreciation for the natural world. Journal of Ecopsychology, 4, 4, 1-4. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-4-2024/volume-4-article-4
Laftah, O. (2024b). ‘Eco-Relaxing in the natural world is for me’, eco-psychotherapy processes in green and blue spaces for all cultures and ages with neurodiverse conditions. Journal of Ecopsychology, 4, 8, 1-5. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-4-2024/volume-4-article-8
Palmer, S., & O’Riordan, S. (2024). Editorial: Ecopsychology Research Continues. Journal of Ecopsychology, 4, 1, 1-4. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-4-2024/volume-3-article-1-editorial
Ritzenthaler, C. & Sirum, K. L. (2024). Exploring the Influence of Social Circles on the Adoption of Pro-Environmental Behaviors. Journal of Ecopsychology, 4, 10, 1-4. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-4-2024/volume-4-article-10
Tillmanns, M., & Kraus, T. (2024). Effect of spending time in nature and animal contact in preventing depression. Journal of Ecopsychology, 4, 7, 1-19. https://joe.nationalwellbeingservice.com/volumes/volume-4-2024/volume-4-article-7
Biographies
Dr Stephen Palmer PhD FISCP Accred is Adjunct Professor of Coaching Psychology in the Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University and former Professor of Practice at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (2018-2024). He is a Director at the International Centre for Ecopsychology and the National Wellbeing Service Ltd. He has written and edited 60 books including Positive Psychology Coaching in Practice (2018, with Green) and has published over 300 articles and chapters.
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0108-6999
Dr Siobhain O’Riordan PhD FISCP Accred is a Chartered Coaching Psychologist and Chartered Scientist. She is a Fellow and Chair of the International Society for Coaching Psychology (ISCP) and a member of the International Research Centre Development Team of the ISCP. She is a Director at the International Centre for Ecopsychology and the National Wellbeing Service Ltd. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Her publications include a book Introduction to Coaching Psychology (2021, with Palmer).