It is a social fiction. In reality the human personality exists at the intersection of the ancient cycles of air and water and soil. Incredible amounts of energy go into futile attempts to heal what is really a fictitious self while our actual, ecological self suffocates. Some of the best thinking on Ecopsychology comes from the neo-Jungian James Hillman. They treat their pain as a symptom of a personal pathology rather than as a goad to political action to bring about social change.
Therapists create patients instead of citizens.
People are willing to die by the millions in defense of one social fiction after another - a religion or political system or ideology. Yet attacks on the Earth which gave rise to all of these and without which none could exist, leave us numb. Because we haven't learned to identify with the living Earth, She fails to ignite in us anything near the passion and commitment that some of her lesser works manage to do. Though we are born, live and die in her, we have made ourselves unconscious of this. The fact that our sense of alienation from Nature is entirely an illusion can be demonstrated very simply by holding your breath for a few minutes.