Environmental analysis has the potential to be confusing, because when interpreted too literally it can become an exercise similar to town planning. The intention is not to construct an ideal environmental set in which every need is accommodated, but to examine how things are now, how they could be changed and what would be the advantages and disadvantages of each change. There are two approaches to this task, the first being so much easier than the second.

Systematic arrangement and analysis of needs

This approach is used when the person concerned has a clear notion of what he or she wants and can weigh up the relative advantages created by success in achieving each of them. It can also be used by those who wish to carry out a nidotherapy assessment on themselves. This is much easier in the absence of significant current mental disorder, so that decisions can be made without any fear that the process will be handicapped by errors in judgement or subsequent changes of mind. The process is relatively simple. Every aspect of the environment is examined systematically and carefully and possible changes also examined for their positive and negative attributes. At the end of the analysis a set of agreed changes is decided, and the patient and nidotherapist move on together to the next stage of implementation.

Here is an example for illustration. Martinas is a middle-aged man who is mildly and chronically depressed. He comes from a central European country and has never felt completely at home since moving to the London area. He is married and his wife, who speaks very little English, is very dependent on him and now makes very few decisions herself, apart from those concerning her son, who is about to go to university in another part of the country. As he will be leaving home, the rest of the family are now thinking about moving to a smaller property, but Martinas has no energy for the necessary transactions in moving house and is becoming increasingly stuck in his ways.