Doctor Helgo Schomer wrote the textbook on how to process fear. He helps patients deal with stress in its many destructive forms. He teaches, runs a private practice and is also a radio ‘agony aunt’. Then something happens that forces him across the line from theory into practice. He is hijacked and forced by his attacker to drive around for hours. He’s terrified he will die.
Doc Schomer is what some might sneeringly call ‘a tree hugger’ but it’s true. He finds powerful healing methods in nature like touching and holding trees, working with sand, marathon runs on the mountain. Unlike many who have an uncomplicated belief in nature as cure, Doc Schomer understands the dynamics involved in deep psychological healing and close encounters with nature.
But will his knowledge and his unusual self-healing work? It is at moments when his psyche seems unassailable, when he is least expecting it, that images of his attack will take him by surprise and he realises that he may need stronger medicine, like walking into the bush to meet the wild out there and within.