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Venturous Counselling offers forest therapy as part of its nature-based therapy services in Vancouver, Port Moody, Coquitlam, and Burnaby for youth, adults, and relationships. Forest therapy at Venturous is counselling held in forested outdoor environments with registered clinical counsellors. This post explores what forest therapy is, how it differs from commodified wellness trends and forest bathing, the Indigenous land-based healing practices that precede it, and how to engage with nature-based therapeutic work respectfully. Venturous provides anti-oppressive, justice-oriented mental health support for people navigating anxiety, burnout, grief, trauma, chronic stress, and nervous system overwhelm.
In This Post
- What Is Forest Therapy?
- Where Forest Therapy Came From (and Who Doesn’t Get Credit)
- When “Nature as Medicine” Becomes Another Thing to Buy
- Who Gets to Access Forest Therapy (and Who’s Been Left Out)
- What Makes Forest Therapy at Venturous Different
- What Forest Therapy Can Hold
- Next Steps: Finding Your Fit at Venturous
Forest therapy is having a moment. It’s in wellness magazines. It’s on retreat centre websites. It’s being packaged into corporate team-building days and sold as self-care for people who can afford a weekend in the woods.
And some of that is fine. Some of it is even good.
But there’s a version of forest therapy circulating right now that’s been scrubbed clean of its origins, stripped of its political context, and repackaged as a personal wellness upgrade for people who already have access to green space. That version deserves some questioning.
This post is about what forest therapy actually is, where the practice comes from, who’s been left out of the conversation, and what it looks like when a counselling practice tries to engage with nature-based healing without extracting from the knowledge systems that made it possible.
At Venturous Counselling in Vancouver and Port Moody, forest therapy is part of our nature-based therapy offerings for youth, adults, and relationships. We offer forest therapy and walk and talk sessions across Vancouver, Burnaby, and Coquitlam with registered clinical counsellors.
What Is Forest Therapy?
Forest therapy is counselling that takes place in a forested or natural outdoor environment, guided by a trained therapist.
In its simplest form, it means moving therapeutic work out of an office and into the trees. Your counsellor is with you. The conversation holds the same relational depth it would anywhere. The forest becomes the space the work lives in.
What separates forest therapy from a forest walk is the therapeutic relationship. Someone’s tracking what’s coming up for you. Someone’s paying attention to what your body does when you talk about the hard thing, when your breath changes, when you stop mid-sentence and look up. The forest holds the environment. The counsellor holds the process.
If you want to know more about the practical side, how sessions work, what the body does during outdoor therapy, what to expect, we’ve written about what walk and talk sessions actually do and about forest therapy in Vancouver and Burnaby specifically.
This post is about something else. This post is about the story underneath the practice.
Where Forest Therapy Came From (and Who Doesn’t Get Credit)
The term most people encounter first is Shinrin-yoku, the Japanese practice of forest bathing introduced in the 1980s by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries. The research base grew from there: reduced cortisol, lower blood pressure, improved immune function. Shinrin-yoku gave the Western wellness world a framework it could measure, publish, and sell.
But land-based healing didn’t begin in 1982.
Indigenous peoples across the world have been practicing relationship with land as a source of healing, ceremony, knowledge, and belonging for thousands of years. That history is the foundation. Everything else sits on top of it. Long before anyone called it “forest therapy,” there were people whose entire understanding of health was inseparable from their relationship to the land they lived on, cared for, and were cared for by.
When we talk about forest therapy in a city like Vancouver, we’re talking about therapy that takes place on stolen land. The territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, among others. These nations have sophisticated, living relationships with the forests we walk through. That relationship predates every clinical framework we use, and it continues despite centuries of colonial violence aimed at severing it.
Naming this isn’t a formality. It’s a recognition that the “healing power of nature” isn’t a discovery. It’s a return to something that was always known, by people who’ve been fighting to protect that knowledge while others market versions of it on Instagram.
When “Nature as Medicine” Becomes Another Thing to Buy
There’s a pattern that happens with practices rooted in Indigenous, Eastern, or land-based traditions. They get studied. They get validated. They get repackaged for affluent Western consumers. And somewhere in the process, the people and contexts the practice came from get edited out.
Forest therapy is following that pattern.
You can now buy luxury forest bathing retreats. Corporate forest therapy packages. “Nature prescriptions” from wellness apps. The language of healing gets layered onto experiences that are, in practice, just nice walks with expensive branding.
This doesn’t mean those experiences are worthless. But it does mean we should be honest about what’s happening: a practice with deep roots in specific cultural, spiritual, and land-based traditions is being flattened into a consumer product. And the flattening has consequences.
When forest therapy becomes a commodity, it stops asking hard questions. It stops asking who has access to forests. It stops asking whose forests these are. It stops asking whether “reconnecting with nature” means anything if your relationship to the land was never severed in the first place, or if it was severed by the same systems now selling you a way back in.
At Venturous, we don’t claim to have solved this tension. We sit inside it. We think that’s the more honest place to practice from.
Who Gets to Access Forest Therapy (and Who’s Been Left Out)
Access to green space isn’t neutral. It’s shaped by income, by race, by disability, by geography, by colonial land policy. Neighbourhoods with higher proportions of racialized and low-income residents consistently have less access to parks, trails, and forests. This is documented. It’s structural. And it means that when forest therapy is framed as universally available, that framing is doing political work, whether it intends to or not.
There are also the access questions that don’t make it into most forest therapy marketing: What about people with mobility limitations? What about folks who don’t feel safe in wooded areas because of their race, gender, or sexuality? What about people whose relationship to “nature” has been shaped by displacement, forced migration, or agricultural labour? “Go to the forest” isn’t a neutral invitation for everyone.
At Venturous, we hold these questions as part of the work, not as footnotes to it. Our counsellors discuss access openly before the first outdoor session: transportation, terrain, mobility, sensory needs, safety, and any histories that shape how you relate to being in an outdoor space. Forest therapy adapts to meet your body, your history, and your reality. We treat that as where the work begins.
And it means naming, clearly, that forest therapy is one modality among many. It’s not inherently superior to office-based work. It’s not more “natural” or more “real.” It’s a different container, and different containers hold different things. For some people, the forest is where the most honest work happens. For others, it’s a closed room with four walls and someone sitting across from them. Both are legitimate. Both are therapy.
What Makes Forest Therapy at Venturous Different
At Venturous, forest therapy isn’t a standalone wellness experience. It’s embedded in a counselling practice with an anti-oppressive, justice-oriented framework.
Here’s what that means in practice:
All proceeds from walk and talk and nature-based therapy sessions are redistributed to Indigenous organizing efforts. We practice nature-based healing on stolen land, using knowledge systems that Indigenous peoples have been protecting and fighting for. Redistribution is one way of staying accountable inside that truth, one gesture among the many that are needed, offered without pretending it settles anything.
Your counsellor brings the same clinical depth outdoors as they do indoors. Forest therapy at Venturous is led by registered clinical counsellors with training in nature-based modalities, art therapy, somatic work, and narrative practice. The forest is the setting. The therapy is the work.
Access is addressed, not assumed. We discuss what your body needs, what feels safe, what terrain works, and what doesn’t, before the first outdoor session. Sessions can involve walking, sitting, or both. Locations are chosen collaboratively. The modality bends to meet you.
The political context stays in the room, even when the room is a forest. We don’t pretend that nature exists outside of politics. The land we walk on has a history. The systems that shape your mental health follow you into the trees. At Venturous, we hold both: the healing the forest offers and the questions the forest asks of anyone paying attention.
What Forest Therapy Can Hold
Forest therapy at Venturous supports people navigating anxiety, burnout, grief, trauma, chronic stress and fatigue, identity exploration, and the kind of exhaustion that doesn’t have a clean name but sits heavy in the body.
It holds the person who’s done years of talk therapy and needs a different way in.
It holds the person who processes better when their body is moving.
It holds the person whose home isn’t safe enough for virtual sessions.
It holds the person who doesn’t know what they need yet, only that the shape of traditional therapy hasn’t held it.
And it holds the contradictions. That you can benefit from something and still have questions about it. That healing can happen on stolen land and that the land is still worth showing up for. That a practice rooted in Indigenous knowledge can be offered inside a clinical framework without that framework claiming ownership of the knowledge.
Forest therapy at Venturous doesn’t pretend to be tidy. The forest isn’t tidy either. And maybe that’s part of what makes it work.
Next Steps: Finding Your Fit at Venturous
If something here landed, if you’ve been looking for nature-based therapy that doesn’t ask you to leave the political part of yourself at the trailhead, here are three ways forward:
Take our 3-minute matching quiz to find the counsellor at Venturous who fits your needs, your style, and your life. The quiz considers what you’re navigating, how you prefer to process, and what kind of therapeutic relationship you’re looking for.
Book a free 15-minute consultation with a counsellor directly. Ask about forest therapy. Ask about what outdoor sessions look like for someone with your specific needs and your specific questions.
Learn more about nature-based therapy at Venturous to see the full scope of our outdoor offerings in Vancouver, Port Moody, Coquitlam, and Burnaby.
You might also want to read about what walk and talk therapy sessions actually do, explore forest therapy in Vancouver and Burnaby, or start with our complete guide to nature based healing.
And if you’ve been circling this idea for a while, holding the desire and the doubt at the same time, maybe the next step isn’t resolving that tension. Maybe it’s bringing it with you.
Jess Picco, MCP is a walk and talk and nature-based therapy practitioner at Venturous Counselling in Vancouver and Port Moody. Jess works with adults and youth through individual and relationship counselling, bringing a queer- and neurodiversity-affirming lens to every session. Her approach centres movement, metaphor, and the stories that shape how we understand ourselves, and she especially welcomes folks who are questioning the rules they’ve been given about who they should be, who think better while moving, and who want a space where life’s messy and beautiful parts can coexist. Jess is also a community co-creator, shaped by team sports, queer community, and showing up with others over time.
Frequently Asked Questions About Forest Therapy
What is the difference between forest therapy and forest bathing?
Forest bathing (Shinrin-yoku) is a guided sensory immersion practice focused on mindfulness and stress reduction. Forest therapy at Venturous is clinical counselling held in a forest with a registered counsellor who facilitates emotional processing and tracks your nervous system throughout the session. Forest bathing is a wellness practice. Forest therapy is therapy.
Where did forest therapy originate?
The term Shinrin-yoku was introduced in 1982 by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries. But land-based healing practices predate this by thousands of years. Indigenous peoples across the world have practiced relationship with land as a source of healing, ceremony, and belonging for millennia. The clinical professionalization is recent; the practice of healing in relationship with land is ancient.
Is forest therapy just a wellness trend?
Forest therapy as a clinical modality is grounded in decades of research on cortisol reduction, parasympathetic nervous system activation, and phytoncide exposure. The commercialization of forest therapy into luxury retreats and corporate packages has raised legitimate questions about commodification. At Venturous, forest therapy is practiced as clinical counselling with a justice-oriented lens, not as a wellness product.
How does Venturous address the Indigenous roots of nature-based healing?
All proceeds from nature-based therapy sessions are redistributed to Indigenous organizing efforts. We practice on stolen Indigenous land and draw from knowledge systems Indigenous peoples have been protecting for centuries. Redistribution is one gesture of accountability, offered without pretending it resolves the underlying tensions.
Who has access to forest therapy?
Access to green space is shaped by income, race, disability, geography, and colonial land policy. Not everyone feels safe in wooded areas. At Venturous, counsellors discuss transportation, terrain, mobility, sensory needs, safety, and personal history before the first outdoor session. Forest therapy adapts to meet each person’s body and reality.
Is forest therapy better than office-based therapy?
Forest therapy isn’t inherently superior to office-based work. For some people, the forest is where the most honest work happens. For others, the safety of a closed room is essential. Both are legitimate. Your counsellor will help you discern which container fits which kind of work.
What makes forest therapy at Venturous different from other providers?
Forest therapy at Venturous is embedded in a counselling practice with an anti-oppressive, justice-oriented framework. All nature-based therapy proceeds go to Indigenous organizing efforts. Sessions are led by registered clinical counsellors. Access and equity are addressed openly. The political context stays in the room, even when the room is a forest.
What can forest therapy help with?
Forest therapy supports people navigating anxiety, burnout, grief, trauma, chronic stress and fatigue, identity exploration, and the kind of exhaustion that doesn’t have a clean name. It also reaches people who’ve done years of talk therapy and need a different way in.
Can I try forest therapy if I’ve never done therapy before?
Yes. Some people who’ve never tried counselling find forest therapy less intimidating than sitting in an office. Walking through a park with someone, talking at your own pace, can feel like a more natural way to begin. Book a free 15-minute consultation to explore whether it’s the right entry point for you.
How do I book forest therapy in Vancouver?
You can book a free 15-minute consultation at Venturous Counselling, or take the 3-minute matching quiz to find the counsellor who fits your needs. Forest therapy and walk and talk sessions are available in Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, and Port Moody.
