The 'Ticking Clock Thing': Climate Trauma in Organisations

2024
Activism & collective action
Climate and ecological emotions
Therapeutic perspectives

This chapter explores the experience of people who work on climate change - scientists, communicators, campaigners and sustainability professionals - and the organisational dynamics that may affect them. It examines how the psychological impact of the climate crisis shapes organisational culture and working experience, and how climate-aware therapeutic practitioners working as organisational consultants and coaches can help climate workers make sense of their experience and navigate the challenges.

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.

Unfurling fern frond

This chapter explores the experience of people who work on climate change - scientists, communicators, campaigners and sustainability professionals - and the organisational dynamics that may affect them. It examines how the psychological impact of the climate crisis shapes organisational culture and working experience, and how climate-aware therapeutic practitioners working as organisational consultants and coaches can help climate workers make sense of their experience and navigate the challenges.

Related resources

Therapeutic perspectives Reading List

The sources on this list relate to therapeutic perspectives. They are not freely accessible online - most require a library subscription, institutional access, or purchase.

Climate and ecological emotions Reading List

The sources on this list relate to climate and ecological emotions. They are not freely accessible online - most require a library subscription, institutional access, or purchase.

Activism & collective action Reading List

The sources on this list relate to activism & collective action. They are not freely accessible online - most require a library subscription, institutional access, or purchase.

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