Research and resources, shaped by those doing the work

A parent describes a sudden moment of climate anxiety in February 2019, staring into a future in which she was unable to feed or keep her children safe.

This chapter describes an integrative research methodology for investigating lived experience and the psychosocial factors influencing environmental cognition and behaviour, developed to study sustainability professionals working to influence pro-environmental decision-making within their organisations. The methodology combines Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with frame and metaphor analysis, drawing on systems thinking and theories of psychological threat, coping, needs, emotion and embodied cognition. Findings show that emotion regulation is a significant coping strategy that can both support and hinder pro-environmental action, and that avoidance of negative emotions, while offering temporary psychological relief, can ultimately produce maladaptive responses to ecological crisis.

This paper addresses how and why the human species considers itself separate from ecosystems, and what needs to shift in our thinking so that we can be part of, rather than split off from, the more-than-human world. Four clinical vignettes — including the famous case of Joanna Macy, whose therapist interpreted her outrage over old-growth forest destruction as displaced sexual anxiety — illustrate the interplay between 'eco' and 'psycho' in the clinical context. Drawing on Hawkins and Ryde's Ecological Awareness Cycle, Mowat argues that psychotherapy training urgently needs to incorporate ecosystemic thinking, framing the climate and ecological crisis as a social justice and diversity issue requiring inclusion in UKCP Standards of Education and Training.

ABSTRACT: This paper considers the position of the counselling and psychotherapy profession within the context of the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) and the profession's responsibility in addressing it. The paper frames the CEE as a social justice issue driven by power structures such as colonialism, oppression and capitalism, which has its roots in intersubjective dynamics that must be addressed by the profession. The paper takes the view that the profession is part of the social ecosystem and must therefore take an active stance in beginning to question its own position and complicity in the CEE. Using an interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA), six counsellors and psychotherapists in the United Kingdom concerned about the CEE were interviewed to explore their personal thoughts and feelings and how it manifested in their clinical work. Socio-cultural and political issues in therapy and therapy training, difficulties in clinical work, and the need for sustainable thinking in the profession were identified. In arguing for an ecosystemic approach to counselling and psychotherapy — where the relational space is expanded to include extra-psychic realities — this paper bases its reasoning for new approaches on themes identified in the interviews.

ABSTRACT: This is Part 2 of 'Climate Change on the Couch' (Mowat, 2022). It considers how the counselling and psychotherapy profession could be preparing trainees to support clients presenting climate-related issues such as distress or trauma. The paper expands on the theme of framing the Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) as a social-justice issue by looking at it through an environmental intersectional lens, whereby our relationship with each other and the environment is seen as an intersectional emergency. Applying an interpretive phenomenological (IPA) approach, six counsellors and psychotherapists concerned about the CEE were interviewed to explore their personal thoughts and feelings, and how the CEE manifests in their clinical work. This paper offers a theoretical underpinning for two domains identified in the interviews: (1) Perception of past, present and future in relation to life on the planet; and (2) Why it is difficult to think and talk about the CEE.

A short conversation with philosopher Timothy Morton, known for developing the term 'hyperobject' in relation to climate change, discussing climate agony, trauma and activism with Caroline Hickman.