Andy Cross is seeking access to a private woodland near Carlisle, where he can offer ecotherapy sessions that combine traditional counselling with bushcraft skills and time spent in nature.
Andy, a qualified therapist and a registered social worker, hopes the approach will make therapy more accessible to people who may feel uncomfortable in a conventional clinical setting.
He explained: “Not everyone is suited to sitting in a therapy room.
“For some people, it can feel intimidating or overwhelming. Being outside in nature creates a very different therapeutic space.”
Andy Cross starting a fire. (Image: Andy Cross)
The sessions begin with an introductory online appointment, allowing clients to build rapport and discuss what they hope to gain from therapy.
If both Andy and the client agree to continue, future sessions would take place outdoors in a private woodland setting.
Clients would learn simple bushcraft skills, such as setting up a tarp shelter and various traditional fire-lighting methods, before sitting together around the campfire for their therapy session.
Andy said: “We’ve all experienced sitting around a fire and putting the world to rights.
“There’s something inherently calming and therapeutic about that environment.”
Andy has worked as a registered social worker for the past decade, spending much of that time in the NHS before supporting students with their mental health at the University of Cumbria, where he qualified as a person-centred therapist.
After recently qualifying as a therapist, he is now expanding his private practice to include ecotherapy, walk-and-talk sessions, and other nature-based wellbeing services.
The service is open to all adults.
Andy Cross. (Image: Andy Cross)
“It’s the same therapy, just in a different space,” he said. “Being outdoors makes it easier to pause, reflect, and talk. Sitting around a fire helps manage reflective silences that can be tough in a therapy room. In my role as a therapist at the university, I’ve found that creating a shared space, like lighting a fire or setting up a tarp together, helps build a therapeutic relationship more quickly”
To make the service possible, Andy is seeking a quiet woodland as close to Carlisle as possible, ideally somewhere private but easily accessible to clients during the working day.
He emphasised that all sessions would follow a strict “leave no trace” approach, with all equipment brought in and removed after each visit to minimise environmental impact.
As a gesture of thanks, Andy is offering the landowner a meaningful way to give back to the community. In exchange for access to the woodland, he will offer one individual up to 24 free therapy sessions at a time.
After that single person completes the 24 sessions, they will be discharged, and he will then offer the opportunity to a new individual.
This process ensures that one person on his caseload benefits from therapy at a time after every set of 24 sessions is completed.
“This would allow one person at a time to receive specialist therapeutic support at no cost, while also helping create a new mental health resource for the Carlisle area,” he said.
Andy Cross in the outdoors. (Image: Andy Cross)
Andy is passionate about bringing ecotherapy to the city, noting that despite Carlisle’s proximity to some of the UK’s most beautiful landscapes, there are currently very few therapists offering this type of support locally.
More information about Andy’s services is available through his website.