I got interested in permaculture when I was fifteen years old, and started to read books on environmental sustainability, green building, and organic gardening. The concept of permaculture made perfect sense to me and if WOOF had existed back then, I think I would have spent a lot of time as a WOOFer. I wonder if I would even be a doctor today, although I'm quite happy that I am one. My job allows me to create tremendous impact in the realm of "social permaculture" and to work with individuals, families, and organizations at "zone zero," which is about creating personal and relational sustainability in order to be better able to create a balanced world.

Before going to medical school, I taught environmental science and conservation to 10 and 11 year old kids in the redwood forests and tide pools of the Northern California Coast, including Mendocino and Santa Cruz. It was an awesome experience, and yet I always knew that I was more suited to "people care" than "planet care." I decided to go into mental health work with a focus on psychotherapy, and I'm really interested in what makes people and systems get sick and what makes them get better. I've become quite convinced, the more time I spend in the health care world, that so much of the "dis-ease" around us is caused by our environment and our unconscious mechanisms of being at odds with it instead of in concert with it.

I practice child, adolescent and adult psychiatry and psychoanalysis, and teach residents at UCSF Medical Center. I feel like I am on a constant path to figure out how to be (and what is) a "psychoanalyst in the woods." Any ideas? I also work at an organizational level, using expertise from education, medicine, and psychoanalysis to consult to schools, hospitals, government agencies, family businesses, startups, and environmental sustainability professionals. My goal is to help people at all levels to address the unconscious dynamics that can prevent the creation of meaningful change. I am interested in finding ways to be more connected to the permaculture community, and to help people within the permaculture community gain more visibility in the health care world.

www.madeleinelanskymd.com
www.profoundsustainability.com