Climate anxiety, eco-grief and climate depression are terms used by the emerging mental health and climate change field to define the psychological impacts of the climate crisis.
Research from leading institutions like the American Psychological Association confirm the mental health impacts of climate disasters and forced migration, as well as the phenomenon of increased fear, anger, sadness, and exhaustion amongst students, scientists, practitioners, activists, farmers and professionals engaged with the climate crisis. The pervasiveness of these feelings is linked to higher rates of anxiety, depression and substance abuse, which can lead to burn-out, hopelessness and resignation (1).
Psychologist and climate change communications specialist Renee Lertzman states that “people get overwhelmed. They burnout and short-circuit and turn their backs on the very issues that they care most deeply about.”
As members of the sustainable development field, part of our job is to figure out how to address the emerging emotional and psychological needs of our team members, students, peers, practitioners and staff. Since 2018 I have been using a human-centered design approach to develop a community-based model of emotional processing that specifically addresses these new needs. It is a model based on cutting-edge research on emotional health from the fields of clinical psychology and neuroscience. The model builds participants’ capacity for psychological resilience in the face of a warming planet and changing geopolitical landscape in order to equip them with the mechanisms to sustain long term, effective engagement with the climate crisis.
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(1) (2017). Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, and ecoAmerica.