Research and resources, shaped by those doing the work

In this first of a two-part essay, Robertson explores the psychological experience of living through what he calls a cultural 'cusp' - a tipping point between two states, evoking both dread and fertile possibility. Drawing on Timothy Morton's concept of 'hyperobjects' (phenomena too vast to be fully comprehended, which dissolve the usual separation between observing subject and observed object), Robertson argues that climate change is not simply an unsolved problem but an unthinkable one, and that humans are entangled within it rather than observing it from outside. He explores an embodied, felt sense of 'cusping' as an alternative to conceptual abstraction, and connects the cultural cusp to personal experiences of symbolic death and transition - drawing on his own retirement after thirty years co-founding a psychotherapy training centre as an example of rupture, loss and renewal. The essay draws on Hillman, Bion, Winnicott and Freud's concept of the uncanny to explore what it might mean to stay present with radical uncertainty rather than seeking premature resolution or escape.

Written by a group of Filipino researchers and mental health practitioners, this piece argues that as one of the world's most climate-vulnerable countries, the Philippines urgently needs to attend to the climate change-mental health nexus. Although health is recognised as a priority sector in the country's Climate Change Act and its Nationally Determined Contributions, mental health effects specifically remain unacknowledged in national climate and health policy, despite escalating typhoon intensity and displacement. The authors set out a research and policy agenda for the coming decade, recommending attention to both acute disaster-related distress and the slower psychological effects of climate change, and call for multidisciplinary, inclusive action bringing together psychologists, health professionals, social scientists, policymakers and affected communities, alongside rapid decarbonisation as a form of mental health promotion at a planetary scale.

Responding to a paper on 'Five Best Practice Insights from Psychological Sciences', Lertzman argues that mainstream climate communication draws on only a narrow sliver of psychology - cognitive, behavioural and social psychology - while overlooking psychotherapeutic and psychoanalytic insights into loss, denial and the limits of purely positive, gain-framed messaging.

ABSTRACT (open access, CC BY-NC 4.0): The climate crisis has wide-ranging mental health impacts, but quantifying these is difficult due to the lack of standardized definitions and tools. This systematic review aims to identify and evaluate the psychometric instruments used to measure emotions related to the climate crisis, assessing their characteristics and gaps. Using PRISMA and COSMIN guidelines, the authors covered articles on self-report measures of eco-emotions and identified ten scales, four focusing on anxiety and six on other negative emotions. Most instruments were developed in the Global North, and six were multidimensional. The most common emotions measured were worry, anxiety, fear, and sadness, and nearly all scales included a behavioural or a cognitive dimension.

By Georgina Ramsay, Gareth Morgan and Lauren McGregor (University of Leicester), The Conversation: The framework was useful in highlighting how people experience a range of meanings and emotions in relation to the climate crisis, such as guilt, responsibility, alienation, despair, grief, powerlessness, anger, hopelessness and hopefulness. We regarded all these different responses as understandable in the context of the climate crisis and its dismissal by others in participants' lives. Some of the most useful questions related to social power - participants told us that differences in social standing impacted on their sense of being heard and included when discussing climate change, and that their experiences were shaped by negative media coverage of climate activism and societal messages that dismissed the issues they were trying to draw attention to.

ABSTRACT: Critical social studies have highlighted the varied methods by which climate activism is reproduced in discourse. This paper examines an incident in which an African youth climate activist, Vanessa Nakate, had her image cropped out of a media photograph taken at the World Economic Forum. The analysis utilizes discursive psychology and conversation analysis to highlight three discursive methods by which Vanessa's activism is challenged: a challenge to her ability to represent 'African' climate activists; an undermining of her claim that her exclusion was racially motivated; and a discourse of emotionality as foregrounding irrationality and incompetence.

Are we too broken-hearted to face the truth about climate change? As therapists and coaches, can we help to heal our collective heartbreak? During lockdown, grieving the demise of our bee population, I opened to the truth about our environmental emergency. Searching for solutions, I read David Attenborough's witness statement outlining the need for collective action within five years, if we are to avert annihilation. My heart weeps for the species we have wiped out, for the farmers driven from their homes by drought or flood, for the toxic seas and the overarching threat of extinction.When survivors of sexual abuse talk about their pain, they use words like numb, broken, frozen. This feels like my experience of eco-anxiety - cut adrift from the wisdom of the body, in limbic distress, trust shattered.

Written by a young person who was first asked about their climate feelings at age 12, this piece traces a shift from inarticulate overwhelm towards a more productive way of processing climate emotions.

ABSTRACT (CC BY 3.0): The Transition movement is based on the notion that peak oil, climate change and the precarious economic situation cause the greatest potential disruptions to human society and therefore require a pre-emptive response. As such its focus is on proactively creating a future in local communities that meets people's psychological and physical needs rather than reacting to the crises that seem imminent. This paper draws on research into the Transition movement in the Australian context that considers the role of inner Transition, which is one of the features that differentiates Transition from other movements for change. However, inner Transition has tended to be marginalised in the movement, because ultimately, action-oriented outcomes take precedence over the often difficult work associated with group dynamics and relational experiences.