Wild Inside

Drawing on almost three decades of practice as an occupational therapist and from deeply personal pieces of her own story, Kathleen Lockyer offers a powerful re-framing of how children develop and how adults can heal alongside them. Kathleen shows parents, educators, and healers how to transform behavior by learning how to build a healthy nervous system, with nature as a wise guide.

Lockyer reveals how many modern childhoods suffer from developmental deprivation, leading to challenges often mislabeled as anxiety, inattention, or defiance. By helping the readers see nature as an essential need for healthy development, she introduces her concepts of ecoception (our innate sensory connection to nature) and relational-regulation (how the nervous system is shaped by interacting). Together, they serve as a trauma-informed, nature-based antidote to the disconnection driving today's mental-health crisis.