Want to talk to a therapist about climate change? Here are four things to ask.  » Yale Climate Connections

We live in a world where extreme weather is becoming more extreme: heat waves are hotter, hurricanes are more severe, and wildfires are larger. This reality can affect our feelings of security in the present and hope in the future, leading to anxiety, grief, fear, hopelessness, and anger.

Wendy Greenspun is a climate psychologist and educator based in New York City. She said not everyone who experiences climate distress needs to see a therapist, but it may be helpful if she feels like her usual channels for managing her emotions aren’t working well enough.

“If there are impacts on functioning, such as sleep and appetite disturbances, or generalized levels of anxiety, hopelessness or depression, those may be things that a professional could really help with,” Greenspun said.

Widespread concern

In a 2021 survey Of 10,000 young people (aged 16 to 25), more than 45% of respondents said that concern about climate change negatively affected their diet, work, sleep or other aspects of their daily lives.

In some ways, traditional therapy models are not perfect for addressing feelings related to climate change. That’s why a field of climate-conscious therapy has emerged.

“The reality out there is incredibly stressful, so feelings of anxiety and fear, or all the other feelings we have, are based on real things,” said Rebecca Weston, therapist and co-chair of the North American Climate Psychology Alliance. “Unfortunately, the field of mental health tends to be so individualistic and so focused on internal experience that it excludes and fails to relate to the external world.”

Through a climate-conscious therapy framework, clinicians learn how to validate the existential fear that comes with climate change while helping people better manage that distress.

If you’re looking for a therapist to talk to about climate change, your first stop might be Climate Psychology of North America. directory of climate conscious therapists. If there are no climate-conscious therapists in your area or none who have insurance, or new patients, you can still find a doctor who can be helpful. When interviewing therapists, here are some tips to determine if a candidate is a good fit:

1. What do you know about climate change?

Weston said it can be helpful to ask therapist candidates what they know about climate change to establish a baseline. “You can even ask, ‘Have you experienced climate anxiety?’” she said. “There is no reason to think that doctors are occupying a different world than the rest of us.”

Greenspun said he began climate-conscious therapy because of his own feelings of distress over the issue. When you talk to potential therapists about your climate concerns, you want them to respond with understanding and validation, he said. If a therapist changes the subject or implies that your climate discomfort may actually be due to something else, it’s probably not a good choice.

2. How do they talk about other existential and social problems?

Weston suggested talking to clinicians about how they help clients overcome systemic issues like inequality and racism to figure out how they bring the outside world into the therapy room.

“Actually, I don’t think this is the first time that doctors have had the opportunity to think about dystopian futures,” Weston said.

For example, experiences like chronic policing in communities of color, he said, can give people a shorter sense of how long they can live and can make it more difficult to consider positive futures.

“For doctors who are comfortable working in that space, I’m not so sure the climate is completely different,” he said. “This is not the first existential threat. So you’re borrowing from liberation psychologyIt is borrowing from psychologies that allows, again, the social, cultural and political world to be a realistic part of our psychological experience.”

Additionally, Greenspun said that if you have experienced direct trauma due to an extreme weather event, are feeling “pre-traumatic” stress, or are facing ongoing climate injustice or environmental racism, it would be good to ask if the doctors you are considering use trauma. -Informed approaches. According to the Trauma-Informed Care Implementation Resource Center, trauma-informed therapy approaches:

• Realize the widespread impact of trauma and understand paths to recovery
• Recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma.
• Integrate knowledge about trauma into all aspects of therapy.
• Actively resist retraumatizing the patient.

3. Are you comfortable being vulnerable with them?

The most important factor for effective therapy is a good relationship between you and your therapist.

“At the center of all of this is the therapeutic alliance,” Greenspun said. “The relationship is really the most beneficial part of therapy, regardless of what technique or theoretical orientation someone has.”

Pay attention to how you feel in the session, she said. Observe how your body reacts and whether you feel calm or not. Trust your instinct. If someone doesn’t feel adequate, they aren’t adequate.

4. Would they be open to learning more about climate change?

Weston said it’s important to find a therapist who is willing to learn from you. “In some ways, this challenges the hierarchy of therapy a little bit,” she said. Weston said if she had a client who wanted her to read something that would help her understand her experience, she would want to read it.

“And I’m not going to present myself as someone who has it all figured out,” he said.

Greenspun agrees. “A good therapist is open to feedback from a client,” she said.

The Climate Psychology Alliance of North America has many resources, from reading lists to webinars, for therapists. on your website.

Good therapy can be transformative

As you continue down the path of finding someone to talk to about climate discomfort, know that more and more doctors are getting the tools to help you. Group therapy and support groups focused on climate change are also increasingly available.

“I think, in general, many doctors are learning more and more to go beyond the individual and their problems to look at the broader sociopolitical world, the environmental and ecosystem world,” Greenspun said.

Good therapy can be transformative, he said. Therapists can help you ask the question: “Who do I want to be in this unfolding crisis?” They can help you connect with the community, take actions that seem meaningful, and align your values ​​with your response to the climate crisis, she added.

“Within really painful feelings some really helpful positive feelings can emerge,” Greenspun said. “Within pain there is gratitude, there is love, there is care. The inside of anger is often the fuel for action. Guilt helps us want to make amends and do something to help. So that’s part of the job too.”

Tom Toro is a cartoonist and writer who has published more than 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010.

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