Wow, what a cool job! What type of degree do you have/need to be an EP? What is the job market like? (I have a Master’s degree in counseling psych and am really re-thinking my career options…)
Phlosphr
just wanted to post back and say I love your NICU design with the ring design incorporating apartments(!) for parents. I would love to spend while in the healing garden. The picture looked very calming (lots of curves as you say)
lorene - I have a Bachelors in psychology, a Master’s in Environmental Psychology, and a PhD in Cognition and Behavior. Just recently for the last one … YAY!! It’s over!!
I took a 3 year layoff between my masters and PhD, money troubles/marriage/work all played a key role.
I went to ASU see here for a link to my program. Check out the Environmental psych areas within the cirricula…
Clinical psych was never my forte, I knew that from the begining. I opted for environmental psych after taking an elective architecture class and loved it.
Carlotta - you are in North Carolina? I know a great person in NC who has a practice utilizing this technique. She specializes in new age birthing… Don’t know if you are looking, but e-mail me and I can give you all the information you can stand…
Which will help my students learn- classroom walls with lots of big, bright-colored posters or simple, cream-colored walls with just a few informational- type posters?
In my apartment, is there anything I can do to my living space that’ll help me with my nagging depression?
BTW, I think you have an extremely cool job.
Yup, Phlosphr, you have a wonderful job!
At a conference on Tibetan medicine I went to a few years back, one of the keynote speakers was an older neurologist from NYC. His presentation was how he had integrated oriental techniques to make a hospital more hospitable, particularly the children’s cancer wing. I don’t remember the hospital, but the before and after photos were amazing. The after was so much more comforting; inviting colors, curves and plants. What was striking was that he was a doctor with a long life of experience, who wanted to make the hospital experience better for patients. One small detail that impressed me was his explaination of chair design in the children’s cancer wing. He asked the parents, and they said a major improvement would be bigger/wider chairs, so they could hold their children while waiting. So simple!, and this hospital did it.
The healing garden is a great idea. Gardens are intrinsically healing spaces, but I’m thinking of integrating medicinal plants into landscaping for hospital settings. There are plenty of beautiful medicinals, and the symbolism is strong. Do you use these plants in your healing gardens? Any links to folks who are doing this?
FisherQueen my experience with classroom settings involve several important factors that must be accepted by the teacher before the children learn to like it. First of all are your floors tile or carpet? Soft classroom design works wonders for all age groups. Don’t forget about curves v sharp points. Instead of the stacked design that many teachers incorporate try arranging the desks or tables in a circular setting, or half circle. This way all the students can all be looking at you or each other, instead of just your face and the back of their friends head. This promotes participation and socialization.
The walls. Most teachers go for the full-on learning walls. Having the ABC’s and such on them or theorems, and equations etc…etc… you get the point. I usually work with full departments and staff and not individual teachers in the area. BUt my advice is to put things on the walls that you like. A happy teacher is an effective one. Posters of cool landscapes, clouds on the ceiling, abstracts and things like that. Too much learning material on the walls with take away from your lesson, and cause some children sensory over-load. In this day and age of ADD/ADHD the less stimulating the walls, the better for the learning challenged and normal student alike.
Elelle - Here is a wonderful article from the American Cancer Society about healing Gardens. I get a little emotional reading it over because childhood cancer strikes a speacial nerve for me. I used to be in charge of international wish granting for the Make A Wish Foundation so I have a special place in my heart for the little ones who have such up-hill battles.
I love making their stays in Hospitals as wondrous as possible. In fact if I could consentrate on that full time I would.
elelle I do use many medicinals in the garden designs. Allong with water features, sands, and little nodal areas under shade trees. It’s always nice to not be seen when you don’t want too.
This site has many great reading materials and links regarding healing with design, colour, and aroma. Aromatic gardens can work wonders on one’s Ol’Factory healing systems.
Also see Japanese gardening, and water features you can touch!!
What good is having a water feature in a childrens hospital if they can touch the water?
For more information please feel free to email me, and I will be happy talk with you. My wife and I are currently working on an interactive website for people to learn how to design everything from their homes and gardens to their cubes and offices at work, it should be up with-in a few months.
scientific question about light bulbs vs. florescent tubes:
I find florescent tubes very irritating.
Somebody told me that there is a scientific reason for this:–that the wavelengths of light given off from a regular light bulb are mixed in a fairly broad range , and are very close to the light of natural sunlight. Whereas from a florescent tube, the light waves are all one color, and not near the natural wavelengths that our eyes are biologically evolved to.
Is this true?
Thanks for those links,Phlosphr
Your work must be quite rewarding. You make the world more beautiful, to soothe minds. Soothed minds in turn are more apt to make a beautiful world. So very much needed in this tooth-and-nail time. Muy thanks!
Fascinating thread, Phlosphr! I’m constantly amazed at how many complex fields of endeavor exist that I never dreamed of. (For some reason I’m flashing back to da feds’ Dictionary of Occupational Titles. My favorite: snowmaker, for ski resort workers.)
I’m trying to wrap my brain around what your field encompasses. (Now that I found out people actually do it. ) Are there subsets and specializations? How broad is it?
A chance-met person worked for a A Big Honkin’ Upscale Retailer and explained that he earned a few gazillion dollars figuring out layout and ambience. “X percentage of the population are right-handed and will be drawn automatically in that direction upon entrance, so plop hot displays thataway…” “Lighting should be clear but not restful; keep 'em moving and lured onward”, etc.
I’m not disparaging by extension, btw, just curious. (No value judgements at all, just slight mental whiplash wondering how many subtleties I’ve blundered past, completely unaware and unappreciative.) What applications does your field encompass?
Veb
In general, what concepts apply when you wish to make, say, a living room as inviting as possible for visitors? I recently created my first home (which is to say I stuck furniture in all the rooms in a manner that I guessed would be comfortable), and I’m still a bit unsure as to whether people really feel welcome there when they come for a visit.
Are there general guidelines like “make the couches face the door” or “don’t block the space below the window with pieces of furniture” or anything like that? I’d love to know if there are some fundamental rules I’m breaking. The living room is also fairly bare-bones, with not much in the way of ornamentation. If I want to make the room cozier on as tight a budget as possible, where would you suggest I start? The walls? A plant? Lighting? Any tips much appreciated.
Also, what’s the weirdest job you’ve ever taken in this field, either in terms of end result or what the customer was looking for? Ever done strangely-themed rooms, or worked for someone who had more money than they knew what to do with?
Hi there Philosphr …This is so interesting to me! I have an interior design business as well. I try to incorporate some Feng Shui into my projects as well…but it sounds like you go far beyond. You are really opening my mind to other aspects of what is possible! It’s funny, I was going to be Psychotherapist, but I did a complete 360 and decided that my creative side was calling me…Never thought I could integrate the two!!!
Great, great thread!
I have a more educational question:
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I am toying with the possibility of getting a masters in psych in environmental psych. Can this get me anywhere? Or do I need a Ph.D. to do anything in the field?
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I’ve been confused about the diffence between I/O psych and environmental psych. Did I/O get eaten by environmental? Or is it my school that doesn’t really distinguish between them? (I asked a prof about this and he said they kinda-sorta merged.)
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If you don’t mind me asking a few personal/career questions:
a. What is the range that you make a year?
b. What are the job prospects for environ. psych. in the future?
Thanks.
Ok here we go in order:
Elelle - Thank you yes, my work is very rewarding!
TVeblen - 'Are there subsets and specializations?
Yes, by all means. However, Environemtal psychology has been around only a mere 30 years. We have taken complexities like Industrial and Organizational Psychology and crossed it with Architecture and interior design with a high concentration of research incorporated in design. It is not uncommon to spend three months researching a given project before we cut a single wall or put a single mark on a blueprint.
Applications you ask? Careers in EP range from research analysts for a large architecture firms to specialized free lancers designing everything from homes, hospital’s to corporate office set-up and design then all the way to working with Urban planners, designing new towns, or re-designing old ones.
I happent o be a teacher at a college, but have a private business as a free lance EP.
** Fnoonf ** -
Color sceme is up to what you deside to put on the walls. I use a technique that is very cost effective and brings both color and texture to the walls. Biophillia - the bringing of the natural world into an unnatural environment. Mostly seen in bringing plants to an office set-up, but can be adapted for the home setting.
So I would say, putting more plants in your living room would do it wonders. That is floor plants as well as wall mounted.
Weirdest job you ask? - Most fun job was described above and was a specialized kids room with everything from indoor tree houses to little nodal environs fit for each different personality with in a set of triplets. Fun jobs, lots of primary colors, and lot’s of rounded edges and fun play areas.
** Shana ** - Thanks it is quite rewarding. If you’d like to get more into the psychology of what you do, I’d take some classes for psychology at a local college. Or if you have an alma mater around somewhere near you, why not audit a couple psych classes for free. Consentration on psych personality, industrial organizational, environmental psych…
** BytopianDream ** - I am 33 years old and started my PhD when I was 30. A master’s can get you very far. In fact I almost stayed at the master level, but the school I worked for paid my way through my PhD. Just think, as a master, you can hang a shingle…
Your school may not distinguish, but as you say, prof’s know there is a definite difference with pre-requisit’s and career paths taken…
Pay-range - though I am a modest man, I make a good living. My wife and I have built our home and are financially satisfied…
Job prospects are plentiful for the future.
I have consentrated in a variety of places, but mainly in hospital room design - children - and elderly housing design.
In the future: things like inner-city living, low income housing, office set-up and design, urban planning, hospital set-up, and residental planning and design, will all incorporate EP’s… So there is much room for us in the future. But I am happy making additions to my own home, and starting a family hopefully soon. 
I work in a lab, My boss has had the walls painted a painted a swimming pool/ sky blue. In one of our test rooms the equipment was reoriented so we just see this blue wall for hours on end (we used to be able to see out of the room).
Is my boss trying to influence our mental states, did he read one too many management books, or does he just like the color blue?
** Boudica ** - Actually your boss may be wanting to expand your lab a bit by some psychological trickery. Blue has a tendency to make things look bigger, so that may be his modus operandi…
So do you actively work in the design feild or are you more of an academic. If the former, what was your most recent project and how and from who do you get paid. The childrens hospital here in Boston - on Longwood - is full of primary color’s and interesting features not common to an adult hospital, do you assist with these, or do you consult, direct etc…etc…
Can you give me some tips on creating the most relaxing environment possible in my bedroom? I mean, besides the obvious things like concealing the clutter.
Some random details: I don’t like the white, minimalist look and I have a lot of books and papers. I like to read and listen to music.
Rumraisin - Ok, clutter aside - thats all you - go down to a local stationary store, or pharmacy…Get some colored construction paper, 18 X 24 if possible. Get color’s you like, I like green but get the colors you like and try to stay away from Blacks and navy blues…
Put them in a diagonal setting from upper corner of a wall down to the lower corner. Do the same on other walls, try to remain consistent however. This will bring the color into your room. Get some rooter vases if you can. They are little vile-type vases used to root a snippet from another plant. You can put these in a window. Bookshelves, bookshelves, bookshelves find ones you like and put things you like on them. For instance, I not only have books on my shelves but rocks and minerals I have found throughout the years. It’s museum-like but very nice in my opinion.
BTW, I only suggested the colored paper if you can not paint the white walls, if you can use a light green almost minty color, very calming.
Antiquarian - for roughly 180 days I am a teacher at a college. For various days with-in the school year and throughout most summers I have my own business where I am a paid design consultant. I get paid by the client, and in rare occasions by the developer. My most recent project was and still is, a local elderly housing project needs a new and vastly improved rec-room. So we’re going with a Roman Bathhouse type setting with corinthian ceilings, and lot’s and lot’s of firm couches to lounge around on. Nodal areas full of things to do, though not overly stimulating…
No, I’m not from Missouri, but I’ll be the 1st to admit I’m a bit too neanderthal to buy into the Feng Shui concept. In fact I enjoyed watching Penn & Teller unscientifically shred it to pieces a few months ago on Showtime’s Bullshit.
That being said, I almost completely concur with Norman E. Rosenthal’s findings regarding Seasonal Affective Disorders (SAD). In my case, the dark winter months definitely have a negative impact on both my outlook and libido.
The reasons I don’t subscribe to the former but completely accept the latter may very well have to do with with my own experiences or biases. Add that to the fact there are 100’s if not 1000’s of self-labelled Feng Shui experts making alot of $ selling snake oil.
Questions:
Do you think Rosenthal’s findings and research are credible?
If not, why?
If so, do you try and incorporate as much natural lighting as possible via skylights and / or full spectrum lighting products?
JohnBckWLD - are Rosenthal’s theories credible. Yes! Have his theories been thoroughly tested and qalified/quantified? No.
Do I use Natural Lighting in my designs? Absolutely, YES!!
I have incorporated many types of windows in my designs to better make use of natural lighting. For instance, a gentleman in New Hampshire had a wonderful old victorian home where he lived and worked. His office was in the Attic. Uh Oh, the only light came from ski lights… He needed more light shown on his attic office. So with a quick 20 minute interview I had him contracting for floor lights eminating natural sun up from the floor. We looked at vertical walls steming up from areas of his office. We cut holes in the wall at floor level. 8 inches by about 54 inches, all along his floor heights. This gave light from above and below and allowed him to be a little more settled in his work.
As for full spectrum lights…Hmmm. We are not growing highbrid plants here John but we are trying to maximise comfort right? So I will say No. I do not utilize full spectrum lights. Imagine working in an office setting, yet being Outside on a cloudless day?? WAAAAY TOOO BRIGHT!!! So I utilize more of a pink light to affect those who need more stimulas in their environs. SAD (seasonal affective disorder) can be helped through Rosenthal’s routes, but in my professional opinion, behavior mod is much better.