Research and resources, shaped by those doing the work

Eco-anxiety in children and young people is experienced in very different ways than in adults. This chapter explores how this appears cognitively and emotionally, proposes the development of a climate and biodiversity crisis lens through which therapy can respond, and examines a range of approaches for the therapy room, at home, in school and outdoors to support children and young people to explore their thoughts, feelings and dreams about the crisis, including moving from therapeutic dyad to therapeutic triad (between therapist, client, and planet).

This editorial introduces a special issue of the Journal of Social Work Practice bringing together psychoanalytic perspectives on ecology and global warming. Opening with Freud's observation that humans are threatened with suffering from three directions - the body, the external world, and other people - the editors argue that while no single way of communicating about the climate crisis is sufficient, multiple approaches each offer valuable pathways into a complex field that evokes fear, anxiety, despair, anger, grief, guilt and shame. The issue's contributions are framed around the difficulty of absorbing successive waves of frightening climate information before attention moves on to the next crisis.

ABSTRACT: Climate change is a defining issue and grand challenge for the health sector in North America. Synthesizing evidence on climate change impacts, climate-health adaptation, and climate-health mitigation is crucial for health practitioners and decision-makers to effectively understand, prepare for, and respond to climate change impacts on human health. This protocol paper outlines our process to systematically conduct a literature review to investigate the climate-health evidence base in North America, covering physical, mental, emotional, and social health and wellness.

This PhD thesis maps a range of what the author terms 'Emotional Methodologies' (EMs) - group work processes such as The Work that Reconnects, Active Hope and the Carbon Literacy Project - used by UK Civil Society Organisations to acknowledge and process the complex, often contradictory emotions raised by the climate crisis. Drawing on concepts of emotional habitus and emotional reflexivity, the thesis explores how participation in EMs supports engagement and sustains it over time, finding that EMs help people integrate cognitive, emotional and behavioural dimensions of response, act as coping mechanisms that help prevent burnout, and broaden the scope of social action people feel able to take.

Drawing on research conducted in England and Scotland with participants in socio-ecological group practices (The Work that Reconnects/Active Hope and the Carbon Literacy Project), this chapter examines how climate change materialises loss, change and injustice relating to ecosystems, cultures, expectations and connections to the more-than-human world. It shows how practices to acknowledge and work with climate-related grief increase capacity to sustain engagement, while unacknowledged griefs contribute to ambivalence that impedes engagement.

This chapter narrates incidents of eloquent encounter with other-than-human creatures and examines their impact within the content and process of therapy, suggesting particular significance within the context of climate emergency. The Zone restores a sense of being 'at home' on the Earth, offering relief from climate-anxiety, complementing activism, and potentially instilling a vision of a new ecological culture.