Healing Landscapes in the Alps: Heidi by Johanna Spyri

This chapter explores the symbolism of the Swiss Alps in Johanna Spyri's well-known children's classic, Heidi, illustrating how a popular work of fiction depicts the therapeutic landscape concept, as they affect physical, emotional and spiritual health. The Swiss Alps are idealized in the novel as a therapeutic landscape, producing physical, emotional and spiritual health for those who experience them. The urban realm of Frankfurt symbolizes illness and all things unhealthy, unlike the Swiss Alps which symbolize health and all things that contribute to wellness. The expanded use of the therapeutic landscape concept in numerous areas of research within social and health geography has moved it well beyond its initial application, that being the understanding of the healing aspects of reputed places. The idealized view of alpine environments depicted in Heidi thereby reflects changes in cultural attitudes toward nature in Europe, illustrating that these attitudes are contingent or context-dependent.