The CPA Climate Crisis Digest: History and Handover
by Wendy Hollway, Adrian Tait and Thulsi Prabakaran
Whether you’re a recent subscriber or a CPA old-timer, we hope you find something of interest in this brief history of our monthly missive, the Climate Crisis Digest. If you’re new here: the Digest is usually a short piece written by a CPA member, which reflects on, and attempts in some way to digest, the difficult truths of the climate and ecological reality we face.
As Thulsi Prabakaran prepares to take over from Wendy Hollway as Digest editor in September, it feels like a fitting moment to reflect on how our small publication and the world which it reflects have changed over the last decade and a half. We begin with recollections from the originator of what would later become the Digest, Adrian Tait.
Asked to remember back to the founding of CPA’s original newsletter that Adrian wrote monthly until 2019, Adrian writes:
Something started to cohere in 2009 with the University of West of England conference Facing Climate Change, staged by the University’s Centre for Psycho-Social Studies (CPSS). I was lucky to catch Paul Hoggett just at a point when he was ready to devote a large chunk of his attention to the climate and ecological crisis.
The conference was a big success, and the ground was laid for some serious attention to denial and avoidance of threatening global realities, also to the critical intersections of planetary abuse with a whole range of social justice issues. I was offered a three-year visiting fellowship by the CPSS to build on what we’d achieved, and a core group soon formed to help shape and steer the project. It became clear that CPA, as it was starting to become by 2013, had the potential to act as a focus and magnet for people who were working, or wanted to work, at the interface of the crisis and the psychological, social and political forces which influenced engagement or lack of it. With the psycho-social perspective by now a key element, other formative strands - from psychotherapy and ecopsychology - retained a voice, and CPA’s pluralism became part of its wide appeal.
One day, I quoted something to Paul from some organisation’s newsletter, to which he replied, “Well where’s our newsletter then?”, or words to that effect. I took on the task with a mixture of trepidation and enthusiasm. What became CPA’s management committee gave me invaluable support with drafts. I was reading a wide spectrum of scientific, political and activist commentary. The monthly output contained up to a dozen links and references, loosely woven into some over-arching theme.
I saw it as part of my job as Newsletter writer to maintain a focus on what was going on in the external world, as a manifestation of underlying forces and as the backdrop to our own internal and voiced responses. I would say this wouldn’t I, but I do sometimes miss the lively, even heated discussions in the CPA members’ Google group of issues thrown up by big events out there, be they political, military, geological or meteorological. Recent comments on the previous lack of discussion of the Iran war suggest that I’m not alone in that.
As a founder member, it was painful for me to realise that one cherished goal, for Climate Psychology to become a powerful force in shaping both government policy and public awareness, was either not happening at all or happening too slowly and on too small a scale to help avert an accelerating global catastrophe. Out of this reality, CPA’s Collapse Conversations have emerged. This has involved adaptation in two senses – an adjustment in the face of reality to CPA’s sense of what it can achieve and a move towards working with each other in thinking the unthinkable. The latter reflects our roots in psychotherapy practice as well as our strapline: Facing Difficult Truths.
Although I remain attached to the model of reflecting on what’s happening out there in the human and more-than-human world, CPA’s own news, shared in the Digest mailout, has been rich and impressive. Climate Cafe Listening Circles, Through the Door (professional training which takes practitioners beyond the consulting room into the wider and collapsing world); achieving charitable status and fund raising to enable work with young people and by those who aren’t in a position to work voluntarily; book launches; a huge range of one-off or regular online meetings and events; also helping to mobilise support for activists (including our own members) who are risking their freedom and livelihoods by challenging corrupt and oppressive laws. The list goes on - and reflects all that CPA has to celebrate, even in the context of a world in dire straits.
About her period as editor, Wendy writes:
I have a diary note on 30th August 2019: “completed CPA newsletter” - the first one I wrote. I hadn’t been a CPA member for long, and I had found it a huge relief to discover this organisation through which I felt I could do something with my increasing awareness of the seriousness of the climate crisis. Adrian’s newsletters were written with a profound recognition that was precious and rare.
When I learned he was looking for someone to take over, I thought I might be able to contribute in that role. It involved keeping alert to a wide range of news. As the months passed, I found myself challenged about how I could pick out priority themes from an overwhelm of climate-related news: the outside world conditions within which climate psychology existed were changing fast. I had a support group with whom I shared every draft, to point out blind spots, based on a psychoanalytic principle that it takes more than one to think a person’s most difficult thoughts.
By April 2020, a similar note in my diary referred to the ‘Digest’. I’d discussed the title shift and what it meant for me at a CPA community day, got the go ahead. The intention of the Digest as I described it then is contained in the definition on the website:
The name Digest reflects the psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion's insight that experience needs to be digested in order to be thinkable, especially when it is hard to bear (hence CPA's approach to difficult truths). The Digest style is not academic or polemical, more journalistic and exploratory in tone. That requires reflection by the author, to invite reflection in readers. Reflection here means inquiring into our emotional experience so as to more fully engage with the meaning of what is written. The theme can be anything, so long as it is treated using a climate psychology lens.
What is a climate psychology lens? Amidst a democratic and diversifying organisation, it soon became apparent that a single Digest voice (same author every month) was inappropriate, especially given CPA’s pluralism. I can’t trace the date when I changed from author to editor. Now my main task became recruiting a diversity of authors from CPA members and in the process encouraging a diversity of themes. It’s hard to remain open to the emotional experience when relentlessly reading news about the world’s flagrant failure to live within its planetary means. Now that my framework has shifted more towards ‘collapse’, by which I mean towards a view of the interconnectedness of all systems, from planetary to political, I encounter a proliferating pile of disturbing stuff as I look out for Digest themes. Sometimes I switch to cognitive efficiency mode (easily accessed given my former academic life) to keep distress at bay while I prioritise deadlines. I’ve learned not to feel guilty about this. However, it is useful to be able to join the many reflective spaces CPA offers, which enable us all to go beyond a purely cognitive awareness of collapse.
I’ve always enjoyed editing others’ writing to produce clarity and accuracy. I did not enjoy layout and getting my head around Mailchimp. Happily, the recruitment of skilled people, from a younger generation with better digital skills, has meant that I could pass on that part of the role to the CPA administration. Thank you to all those with whom I have worked, who have ensured that the final monthly product looks so attractive and professional.
The insights that arise from using a climate psychology lens on world events are multiple and infinite. Probably it’s a good sign that that perspective defies precise definition. The accompanying process, however, is possible to specify and it’s one shared by CPA in all our activities: the idea of difficult truths needing digestion points to the importance of reflection, as in being attuned to our emotional experience and not just cognitive understanding as we write and read these monthly offerings; also as we engage in our climate-aware lives. With that principle at its core, the Digest format can blossom in countless directions! I am delighted to pass the role on to a younger, media- savvy, energetic and connected editor. Thank you Thulsi!
In anticipation of taking over the role of editor, Thulsi writes:
I am really looking forward to stepping into the role of Digest editor from September, although I have big shoes to fill from Wendy and Adrian! Even though my background is not in psychology, as a sustainability professional, I grapple with my emotional responses to the climate and nature crisis every day. I believe that I can’t truly show up in my work or in my personal life without addressing and processing what my climate emotions mean.
I enjoy reading the Digest each month because of the breadth of topics explored by members. The personal nature of these pieces often resonates, allowing me to feel seen on a deeper level. The fact that the Digest is a core part of CPA reflects our values as an organisation, and I am keen to further enhance the diversity of voices that are showcased. With an increasing focus on intergenerational and youth work at CPA, I would love for more students and young members to share their thoughts and feelings, whatever stage these may be at. As young people, we may feel that we are ‘less qualified’ than more senior members due to our fewer number of years on this earth, but it doesn’t mean that what we want to say isn’t important. I would argue that it is powerful in helping other generations, including our own, understand how we really feel about the past, present and anticipated future, further strengthening our community.
Even though the Digest is governed by a small team at CPA, I hope it continues to feel owned by our members through bringing their topics of interest to light. It is a valuable collection of writing highlighting the bravery and resilience of our community to “face difficult truths” whilst trying to make more sense of the complex world we live in.
Recent editions of the Digest can be accessed on Linkedin here. Other editions are temporarily unavailable due to technical problems with our website (see notice below).
Author's Bios
Adrian Tait
Adrian Tait trained at the Guild of Psychotherapists from 1985, then spent 25 years in full-time practice, including teaching MRCPsych trainees at an NHS psychiatric hospital. A 2007 talk on ecopsychology reignited his interest in Earth System issues, leading him to help organise the 2009 Facing Climate Change conference, out of which CPA was born. He now lives in Somerset, working on agro-ecological farming and tree-planting projects that combine community benefit with biodiversity, climate resilience, and food security.
Wendy Hollway
Wendy Hollway is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the Open University, where her psycho-social research interests were in studying identity and identity change processes. She now writes about changes in Modern neo-liberal subjectivity at the end of fossil-fuelled modernity. She co-authored the book Climate Psychology: A Matter of Life and Death with fellow CPA members Paul Hoggett, Chris Robertson and Sally Weintrobe.
Thulsi Prabakaran
Thulsi Prabakaran is a young sustainability practitioner committed to driving impactful change through holistic strategies that foster education, awareness and cultural transformation. She passionately believes that our emotional responses to the climate and nature crises are inherently linked with how we show up in our day-to-day lives. In addition to working as a sustainability manager at Jisc, Thulsi is also the co-chair of the Students and Young Members’ group, helping to increase the youth voice at CPA and strengthen intergenerational connections. She is based in Cambridge.
