Therapeutic perspectives Reading List

From The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist (Willsher & Freeston, 2024): Climate change distress is a challenge to people seeking help, and to those providing help. Those providing help are working in a new area of clinical practice where little is known, but they may also be experiencing climate change distress. The aim of this article is to highlight the personal and professional implications of the unfolding climate crisis and how we might better understand and support those with understandable, yet intense, emotional reactions to the climate crisis. The article consists of a first-person narrative by Claire Willsher, a CBT psychotherapist with lived experience of climate anxiety, and a commentary on the narrative based on the psychology of climate change literature by Mark Freeston.

ABSTRACT (open access via Cardiff ORCA repository): Climate distress describes a complex array of emotional responses to climate change, which may include anxiety, despair, anger and grief. This paper presents a conceptual analysis of how acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is relevant to supporting those with climate distress. ACT aims to increase psychological flexibility, consisting of an open and aware orientation to one's experiences, and an engaged approach to living, guided by personal values. By embracing climate distress as a natural human experience and promoting value-guided action, ACT offers a promising approach that brings co-benefits to individuals and wider society.

ABSTRACT (Open access): The discipline of clinical psychology is waking up to the climate crisis. There is growing consensus that the mental and physical health impacts of climate and ecological change will be significant, and will compound existing health and social inequalities. Whilst many UK clinical psychologists recognise climate change as professionally relevant, there is no literature documenting their level of awareness about the threats of climate change to psychological wellbeing. Interviews were conducted with 13 clinical psychologists working in the NHS; narrative analysis revealed identity dilemmas and social narratives about the profession influencing whether and how clinical psychologists adopted a climate-concerned position in their professional lives.