Yasmin Kapadia

I am a transpersonal integrative counsellor and eco-therapist based in Brighton and I have worked in different roles within various statutory and third sector mental health services for over 15 years. For CPA, I offer therapeutic support to environmental activists and other groups of people experiencing distress on account of the climate, ecological and interrelated social crises and injustices. Having participated in various forms of activism myself, I am familiar with the kinds of struggles this can bring and the need to balance meaningful engagement with avoiding and healing from burn-out. I have worked with young people, including students needing to emotionally process very disturbing things they are learning about the state of our world through their academic courses. Many young people I see are angry about the world-problems being handed down to them deal with and are often worried or despairing about their futures. I've also worked with parents who are frightened for their children, and with people who feel overwhelmed by their deep care for other people and for the decimated and threatened other than human animals and plant life of the planet. I do not view issues of climate and ecological breakdown separately from issues of colonialism or it's racist legacies. In particular I hold the racial trauma faced by people of colour alongside climate and ecological grief and anxiety. My work is about supporting inter-linked environmental and social injustices and crises to be faced and responded to more openly, fully and freely, with deeper wisdom, greater courage and more care.