I write, moved by the desire to present a new area of activity of the Center of Psychology and Transactional Analysis (CPAT) of Milan, Italy: Homo Humus. This name arises from a common root: homo and humus in fact share the same etymology, an Indo-European word that sounds more or less like “d-ghem,” which means “earth.” From the Latin humus comes the term that indicates fertile soil or living ground. Also from Latin, homo derives the word that designates the human being, literally “the one who is of the earth.” It is not by chance that even the term humble derives from humilis, which in Latin means “close to the earth” or “low,” not in a devaluing sense, but in the sense of being rooted.

In this perspective, the human being is not thought of as separate from or above nature, but as emerging from the same matrix. Homo is the being that is born from humus, and this common root reminds us of something essential: our identity is embodied, rooted, and connected to the natural world. This awareness has been a point of exploration and research for me.

For four years, I trained in trauma work connected to expressive therapy and a nature-based approach. Guiding me was a question: What reactivates the vital aspects of curiosity and exploration after an experience that has generated interruptions of meaning and imprisoned the person in a system of fear and immobility? In therapeutic work, we often see how trauma produces fragmentation, loss of trust, alteration of the perception of time and space, as well as hyperactivation and neurobiological damage. Starting from these observations, I began to study how a nature-based approach to care could have a transformative function in post-traumatic processes.

This research led me to interweave clinical practice, trauma theory, neuroscience, ecopsychology studies, and processes of neurophysiological regulation and co-regulation in natural environments. I presented these reflections at CPAT conferences in Italy and at the Transactional Analysis (TA) World Conference in Montpellier, and I developed training programs focused on post-traumatic growth.

In recent years, I have also conducted three residential seminars of Shinrin Yoku—a Japanese practice of forest immersion—which involved 30 care professionals, psychotherapists, and counselors. These are moments of direct experimentation showing how, in dialogue with trees, water, and stones, it is possible to experience transformative possibilities in the direction of well-being.

This evidence-based approach is also studied in the treatment of some organic and psychological pathologies. Gradually, my vision of care processes has changed, and I have embraced an ecocentric perspective in which the human being is conceived as part of nature. This does not mean denying the differences between human beings and other living forms, romanticizing nature, or denying the specificity of the human species.

Rather, it means recognizing the value of relationship: a relationship between human beings and the environment, between the nervous system and the natural context, and between biological and psychological cycles. Within this relationship, recognizing that life proceeds in cycles becomes central, as does accepting that limitation is not only a deprivation but a condition of transformation. It also means understanding that growth passes through phases of “death” or “winter” and regeneration.

We can think of the Physis that Berne speaks about, an intrinsic force and vital push that orients the organism toward integration and development: “the force of nature that eternally creates new things and makes existing ones better” (Berne, 1947). I have come to think that nature can be seen as a relational partner in the therapeutic process.

Sebastião Salgado: When the earth reactivates creativity

I now want to bring an example that has been illuminating for me. When Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado arrives in Rwanda in 1994, he is not only a photographer documenting a historical event; he is a man looking into the abyss. For months he observes flight, hunger, piled bodies, and the dissolution of human dignity. His camera records everything, but something inside him cracks.

In the documentary The Salt of the Earth, Salgado recounts that after that experience, he loses faith in humanity (Wenders & Salgado, 2014). He becomes ill and falls into a deep depression. It is not only physical exhaustion; it is a fracture in the possibility of giving meaning to existence. It is as if, after seeing too much evil, he can no longer believe in the possibility of good.

In his recent book Creazione e Malessere, Manzoni (2025) reflects precisely on this point: malaise is not simply a disturbance to eliminate, but rather the expression of a broken bond. When a human being is exposed to a traumatic reality, their capacity to think and feel becomes blocked, and creativity becomes paralyzed. It seems impossible to transform experience into form, narrative, or image. For Salgado, at a certain point, photographing is no longer possible, and it is here that a decisive passage occurs.

Returning to Brazil, to the family fazenda, he finds a devastated land. The forest he remembered from childhood no longer exists, and the soil is arid, impoverished, and almost dead. That land seems the mirror of his inner condition. It is his wife, Lélia, who has a profound intuition: to reforest everything, plant trees, and restore life to that wounded land.

Thus, the Instituto Terra is born, and millions of trees are planted. The work is slow, concrete, and daily. It is not a symbolic or abstract gesture; it is digging holes, placing roots, and waiting years. Eventually, something happens: the forest grows again, birds and animals return, and water springs begin to flow. Together with the forest, slowly, Salgado also returns.

In contact with nature, over a long period of growth, a creative possibility is reactivated. Nature introduces a different temporality: cyclical, patient, and regenerative. The human being moves from being a powerless spectator in the face of evil to becoming part of a larger vital process. After the reforestation, Salgado creates the project Genesis, a work dedicated to the original beauty of the planet and to places and peoples that still preserve a harmonious relationship with the earth.

From a movement of escape from experienced suffering, his gaze changes and chooses to tell the story of creative possibility. Salgado’s story shows us something significant: malaise can become a threshold. When contact with the world breaks, returning to nature can reopen a path made of gestures, encounters, and the experimentation of the possibility of transforming some wounds by placing them back within the continuity of existence. Planting trees, in this sense, was for Salgado a creative and transformative act—generating life where he had seen death. The growing forest is the visible form of an invisible healing.

Homo Humus, a proposal

Homo Humus arises from the idea that care processes can integrate multiple aspects:

• To experience the natural environment as a place of neurophysiological regulation and co-regulation.
• To recognize the value of sensory and bodily experience as a place of connection between the inner world and the outer world.
• To recognize the transformative potentials that arise from relationships and dialogue with natural elements—trees, water, and stones.
• To recover the importance of an ecological dimension of care.

The logo represents precisely this: homo and humus are not superimposed, nor indistinctly fused. They are distinct, and together they are in resonance. They call to each other and exist in relationship, because if the human being is not nature, without a relationship with it, they lose part of their connection with life. I think of Homo Humus as a space of training, research, residential seminars, and integrated clinical application.

It is the proposal of an expansion of our gaze. If trauma is a fracture of the bond, care must also pass through the reconstruction of the bond with oneself, with the other, and with the earth. Perhaps today, more than ever, we need to remember that the human being is born from humus. And that in the earth—symbolic and real—there exists a possibility of transformation.