The Necessity of Empty Places*: Prescribing Nature for What Ails Us

• NPG
• April 16, 2026
• Forum Papers
• Forum Paper
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An NPG Forum Paper
by Karen I. Shragg, Ed.D
April 2026

ABSTRACT

For those who can partake, the natural world offers a break from our often-chaotic lives. Remedies for stress brought on by personal or political upheaval and uncertainty increasingly point to a real-world remedy: get out into nature. It is indisputable that this advice is well supported by evidence, but what happens if access to nature disappears? Population growth is putting development pressure on our natural areas, decreasing opportunities to use nature as our salve just when the demand for its benefits are increasing.

*I would like to acknowledge the late Paul Gruchow — writer, conservationist, and keen observer of the American landscape — whose book The Necessity of Empty Places inspired the title of this paper for NPG. His work continues to resonate with those concerned about stewardship and restraint.

NATURE DEFICIT DISORDER

In 2005, author Richard Louv coined the phrase, “nature deficit disorder,” to describe the way the alienation from the natural world was behind so many disorders diagnosed in children. While not a medical condition per se, Louv makes a good case for how we have removed ourselves from the rhythms and lessons of the forest and prairies only to substitute them with the banality and noise of the unnatural indoor world.¹

I grew up in a world where we were allowed to roam free in our neighborhoods and told not to come home until the dinner bell rang. During those glorious unsupervised hours, I was able to find my way through the neighboring woods to splash about in the stream, catch minnows and hang out in the sturdier tree branches.

It has been startling to witness the downward slide into stress that the more sheltered and smothered childhoods of today now offer. We didn’t need a nature prescription in the 60s, that wasow we lived. Today, understanding that the freedom to explore has been lost to “stranger danger” and the predilection for safety, the effort to recapture those days is deeply defensible and commendable.

Poet Paul Gruchow wrote about the way we need empty places to find ourselves or risk submitting to a world that is unnatural to the way we evolved. We are genetically similar to when we were hunter-gatherers. From an evolutionary perspective, we haven’t lived indoors for very long. We have not adapted well to the lack of activity, artificial light and lack of excitement offered by daily encounters with wild things in the outdoors. When outdoor recreation is treated with misgivings or is absent altogether, young people are deprived of a world that they need…  For footnotes and to continue reading please refer to the PDF of the paper by clicking here.