Michaela McDaid

Professionally, Michaela was never drawn to clinical, caring or counselling settings. Believing in the power of education and self-determination, she has spent 25 years designing and delivering mental health training programmes to the broadest cross section of society. This career is underlined by lived experience of a bipolar diagnosis and ‘treatments’ of copious amounts of medication, counselling, psychotherapy and hospitalisation. She now understands her emotional distress, suicidal ideation and ‘psychosis’ as responses to significant trauma. Before she knew it was a ‘discipline’, Michaela intuitively applied ecotherapy to her own ‘recovery’. Within 3 years she was entirely medication free and enjoying better mental and physical health than she had ever known. She now works part time for Solas Donegal, a recovery programme based on walking, talking, and listening in green spaces and also has her own flourishing Ecotherapy practice providing education and experiences to facilitate people deepening nature connection for better mental. Michaela maintains that she is not the therapist - nature is.