A workshop for therapeutic practitioners facing the climate
and ecological crisis

Colourful lichen on rock

For psychotherapists, counsellors, and health practitioners, the climate crisis can feel like something happening just outside the consulting room door, and just outside what your training prepared you for. Through the Door is a space to step across that threshold without needing to know what's on the other side.

Door opening onto a sunlit room

What is Through the Door?

Frosty path leading to a lone tree in the mist

Through the Door is a one-day online workshop for therapeutic practitioners and those with experience of working therapeutically with individuals or groups. It explores how to be present in the climate and ecological crisis and find new ways into the future that is coming towards us.

The workshop draws on traditional rites of passage to inspire new forms of being psychological, fit for the challenges of this uncertain time. It involves transiting doorways as border crossings to different realities.

Open sketchbook with a pressed flower and landscape drawings
Frosty riverbank at dawn

It is an experience of feeling, thinking, and imagining together. Process-focused rather than outcomes-focused, working emergently with the group's emotional experience. The aim is not to deliver answers but to inspire and make space for new forms of being and doing.

Wooden footbridge over a misty river

Why this work 
matters now

These are times of great change and uncertainty. We are transiting a cultural threshold, and this requires relinquishing what feels like normal reality. Much anxiety accompanies this social fragmentation and cultural rupture as we let go of the familiar and search for new ways of connecting.

The therapeutic training we have had as practitioners may allow us to tolerate this anxiety, to attend to unconscious processes, and to be containers, even catalysts, for transformation. Through the Door doesn't aim to answer the "What should I do?" question, nor is it a solutions-oriented skills training. Those framings can themselves be ways of avoiding the present catastrophe.

Instead, the workshop creates space for practitioners to ‘stay with the trouble’ to bear what feels unbearable, think the unthinkable, and resist the urge for premature closure. In cultures where performance, goal-setting, and productivity are heavily emphasised, learning to do this is itself a radical act, and one that permits the emergence of fresh responses to the challenges of this destabilising time.

Who Through the Door is for

Through the Door is designed for psychotherapists, counsellors, health practitioners, and those with experience of working therapeutically with individuals or groups. It is professional development, but it is also deeply personal. The workshop assumes a baseline of therapeutic experience and a willingness to bring your full self to the work.

Grey-haired man looking down thoughtfullySmiling man in a beige T-shirtYoung woman with curly hair and a red scarf

You might be drawn to Through the Door if:

  • You are a practitioner deeply affected by the climate distress that clients are increasingly bringing into the room

  • You're sensing that your practice needs to expand or shift in response to the crisis, but you don't yet know how

  • You're feeling the limits of your consulting room as the only place you do this work

  • You're carrying your own climate grief, fear, or overwhelm and need a space to process it alongside colleagues

  • You want to think with other practitioners about what therapeutic work means in a time of cultural rupture

You might not be the right fit if:

  • You're looking for a skills-based training in CBT techniques for eco-anxiety

  • You want clear protocols and step-by-step guidance

  • You're new to therapeutic practice and looking for foundational training

What the day offers

Through the Door is held online over one day. Places are limited to 18 participants, with two facilitators holding the workshop. The day moves between large group exploration, small group breakouts, individual reflection, and shared imaginal work.

Individual and shared imaginal exploration

Working with imagination, image, and metaphor as ways of accessing what cannot easily be put into words. The "door" is more than a metaphor, it's a way of moving between realities.

Interactive groupwork

Small group breakouts and pair work to deepen reflection and build connections with other practitioners.

Process-focused, emergent work

The day doesn't follow a fixed agenda. Facilitators work with what arises in the group, holding the space for difficult feelings, surprising insights, and the kind of slow attention that this work requires.

A different kind of professional space

This isn't a webinar or a lecture. It asks you to show up as a whole person, not just a practitioner with credentials. Many participants describe it as life-changing.

Practical details:

  • Format: Online (Zoom)

  • Duration: One day, typically 10:00 to 17:00 UK time

  • Group size: Limited to 18 participants

  • Facilitators: Two lead facilitators per workshop, drawn from the CPA Through the Door team

Lichen and moss on an old stone wall
Team

Who facilitates Through the Door

Through the Door has been offered by CPA since 2018 and is held by a team of experienced practitioners, with two lead facilitators per workshop.

Jennifer Fendya

Psychologist, Sandplay Practitioner, Forest Therapy Guide, contemplative photographer and workshop facilitator

Chris Robertson

Psychotherapist and trainer since 1978, founding facilitator of Through the Door, ex-CPA Chair, co-founder of Re-Vision, and co-author of Climate Psychology: A Matter of Life and Death (2022).

culture-crisis.net

Harriet Sams

Tutor, mentor, guide, and ecotherapist, currently researching archaeotherapy for her PhD.

nwyfre-earth.co

Toby Chown, MA

Dramatherapist, senior therapist at Oasis Project in Brighton, writer, and imaginal ecologist.

Testimonials

What participants say

If you'd like to discuss whether Through the Door is for you, email us on admin@climatepsychologyalliance.org

“I really enjoyed the collective creativity during the workshop and it has stayed with me since.”

Through the Door participant, 2024

“I am learning to live with a new sense of vulnerability without answers.”

Through the Door participant

"We became more familiar with the capacity to soothe ourselves as we cross the uncertain 'thresholds of cultural crisis"

Through the Door participant

"I learned that through constellating in groups we see a bigger story of what is within and between us"

Through the Door participant

"Yesterday, I was so surprised and energised by the marvellously imaginative and creative event you facilitated. I can't believe I'm saying this of a Zoom event!!! It felt fertile and productive but also, painful and confusing. But, above all I felt energised… The group thinking triggered not just the loss and chaos of the Crisis but also my personal story. I think this was the 'powerful' connection enlivened in me. Playful, creative and imaginative crisis! If this is what is on the other side of the door .....then, count me in."

Participant, 2023

“My own experience of Through the Door was life-changing and I love thinking about how others will experience it. I went to the CPA Through the Door workshop in 2019, and it got me thinking with others about how my work with groups and leadership could enable me to respond to the climate crisis. It was a transformational experience and I credit it with the development of the climate café model.”

Rebecca Nestor

Pricing

We offer three pricing tiers. On our 'reduced fee' and 'very low/no income' rates there are sliding scales. Please consider what is appropriate and manageable for you, and pay what you can.

  • Standard: £100

  • Reduced Fee: £30 - £80

  • Very low income: £5 - £20

Open notebook, magnifying glass and old books on a wooden table

Step through the door

Through the Door runs several times a year. Spaces are limited to 18 per cohort.

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