This doctoral thesis is a phenomenological study convening a group of leaders from UK organisations that engage the public on climate change (climate change communication) for seven meetings over eleven months, exploring the systems-psychodynamic experience of leadership in this sector. The 'ticking clock thing' of the title originates in a participant's description of the emotional experience of working in climate communication: a persistent sense of urgency and time pressure that shapes organisational dynamics, leadership behaviour and the pace of work. The thesis explores how this pressure is experienced, defended against and organisationally managed, contributing to limited existing scholarship on organisational dynamics in organisations whose task includes addressing the climate crisis.
'The ticking clock thing': A systems-psychodynamic exploration of leadership in UK organisations that engage the public on climate change
This doctoral thesis is a phenomenological study convening a group of leaders from UK organisations that engage the public on climate change (climate change communication) for seven meetings over eleven months, exploring the systems-psychodynamic experience of leadership in this sector. The 'ticking clock thing' of the title originates in a participant's description of the emotional experience of working in climate communication: a persistent sense of urgency and time pressure that shapes organisational dynamics, leadership behaviour and the pace of work. The thesis explores how this pressure is experienced, defended against and organisationally managed, contributing to limited existing scholarship on organisational dynamics in organisations whose task includes addressing the climate crisis.
Rebecca Nestor
I've been a member of CPA since about 2015. I became more actively involved in 2019 when I was doing a doctorate on the dynamics of climate organisations, and working with Gillian Broad to develop the climate café model. I find CPA an intellectual and emotional home, where I can be myself and share the ways in which the climate and polycrisis are affecting me. As co-chair I'm interested in supporting fellow members to make their own contributions to climate psychology; in helping CPA become financially independent; and in our continuing work to explore and dismantle the colonial structures that are within us and around us.
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