A workshop for therapeutic practitioners facing the climate 
and ecological crisis

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.

What is Through the Door?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Jennifer Fendya, PhD

Psychologist, Sandplay practitioner, nature and forest therapy guide, Climate Reality Project leader, and CPA member.

Toby Chown, MA

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

Testimonials

What trained facilitators say

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

"We funded CPA's youth programme through our family foundation because we believe young people deserve spaces where their climate feelings are taken seriously. The work CPA is doing is irreplaceable, and we're proud to support it."

Funder

"Thank you so much for facilitating this space. It is very deeply appreciated and has nourished a space for processing the tucked-away pain of traumatic experiences from different points of my climate activism journey, as well as nurtured a sense of social connection to comrades and fellow human beings; from strangers to friends."

Retreat participant

“I felt like I was listened to and encouraged to express my feelings, regardless of what they were”

Support Space for Young Adults participant

"It was a good balance of information, practical tools, advice & reflection/sharing space. I liked having the wellbeing exercises to do in the session, as I often struggle to get myself to do them on my own, and to have someone guide with that. - Deep Resilience for a World in Crisis workshop participant "

Deep Resilience for a World in Crisis workshop participant

"I'm extremely grateful for the weekend. This..held space for grief and healing is exactly what is needed in activism, and I wish for a world where everyone has access to beautiful support like this. Thank you for a wonderful and restorative experience."

Youth Retreat participant

"As a therapist, CPA has been the professional home I didn't realise I needed. It's where I do my deepest thinking."

CPA member and practitioner

"I came looking for support and found a community. CPA gave me language for feelings I didn't know how to name."

Climate café participant

Pricing

We offer three pricing tiers with a sliding scale on our reduced fee and very low/no income rates.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

Step through the door

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

Book a place via Eventbrite
Check the events