Why I’m training to be a therapist - and what that means for Love Wild Plants

Amanda Zambon
Feb 26
4 min read

Updated: Feb 27

Some personal news

I have been quiet on here for the past couple of months. It all started last November, when I left my corporate job.

To be honest, it had been a long time coming. Though I am immensely proud of the career that I had built over 15 years, a change had been brewing within me for a while.

I was working in government affairs, and politics of the past decade challenged the reasons that I had gone into that line of work.

Having studied history at school and university, I was of the view that the post-War international trade system that had been built since the 1950s was a force for peace, and for good.

That the more countries traded, the more likely they were to be at peace. And that good regulatory policy was a fundamental enabler of this.

It's not that I no longer believe these things, it's that my worldview has become more complex. For one thing, I do not feel at ease promoting endless trade in an age where we have too much consumerism, destroying both our mental health and our planet by exploiting the belief that we are not enough.

But also, I've come to realise that so much of what we see on the political stage is a result of trauma, and that both personal and collective healing is what is urgently needed in the world.

Good policy will always remain important, but I guess I've realised that there are forces that lie beneath that which require tending to.

Personal healing

This observation about politics has actually been mirrored in my own development, as I have had to look my own trauma face over the past 7 years.

I lost my mum when I was three but it was never spoken about at home. I had a lot of repressed grief in my body that I had never been able to heal, and unfortunately this was not a journey my dad was willing to take with me - a major contributing factor for us now sadly being estranged.

I found solace in two places.

Firstly: in nature, and learning about wild plants in particular gave deep rootedness to my life in a time of great upheaval. A sense of being part of something bigger, connected and timeless that spanned back through human history. This Love Wild Plants project is a result of that.

The second place I found healing was in therapy, and researching about trauma. In 2024, I completed a certificate in Counselling Skills, and got quite interested in folklore, archetypes and depth psychology, which has already made its way into some of my writing .

I took a year off from my training when my daughter was born, though I kept writing throughout my late pregnancy and the early months of her life. Now, my daughter has just turned one, I have decided to continue with my training to become a psychotherapist and to reassess what that means for my writing on this Love Wild Plants platform.

Where plants and healing meet

Part of the reason for my pause in writing since November (aside from hibernation!) is that I was wondering how these two strands come together: the wild plants and the therapy.

I was for a while considering whether I should separate my plant project from the therapy / deep psychology career shift I was going through.

I was worried it might alienate some readers who have come to me mostly to learn some information about plants - identification tips, foraging and so on. But then I realised : there are so many wonderful sources providing that already and the point of this blog is to add my own unique voice and interests.

And on reflection, the element of my plant profiles that I enjoyed the most was the folklore and psychological analysis. I also couldn’t help but notice that my most popular blog is also the one I enjoyed writing the most - on Witches, Herbs and the Wild Woman Archetype.

So, where I have landed is that I simply have to incorporate my therapy training into the content I’m creating on Love Wild Plants, because for me they are very deeply connected.

There’s a reason I put the word “love” in the title … it has always been about healing for me.

I believe our connection with wild plants is so deeply ingrained in us that if we truly let these amazing beings in, then we can integrate much of what is out of balance in our modern world: within and between us; psychologically, somatically and emotionally.