When psychiatrist Carolyn Hickman is asked to help a child overcome her fear of dogs, she introduces them to her Labrador Murphy.
"You can make your child feel confident in their relationship with a dog and teach them the skills to manage dogs," she says. "You develop skills, you develop abilities, you develop confidence, and then they're less afraid of dogs. ”
Climate anxiety, Hickman said, is another matter. "We don't know 100 percent what to do with it. It would be a huge mistake to try to treat it as something else that we are all too familiar with that has been around for decades. This time it's much worse. ”
At its worst, climate anxiety can disrupt the ability to function on a day-to-day basis. Hickman's research shows that children and young people in this group feel alienated from friends and family, feel distressed when thinking about the future, and have intrusive ideas about who will survive. Patients obsessively examine extreme weather, read climate change research, and pursue radical activism. Shockingly, some people believe that suicide is the only solution. Hickman isn't the only expert to see this. Sarah Ray, in her book, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, describes a student who had such a severe "self-loathing eco-guilt" that she didn't eat anything at all, including food.
Most people's concerns about global warming are not so obvious. It's hard to determine exactly what climate anxiety is, and therefore what to do. Especially for adults, it's still a shame to admit that it has severely affected your life. But they are struggling to cope with increased demand from clients who say climate change is having a profound impact on their mental health, and research shows that this anxiety is becoming more common. Existing professional approaches to dealing with anxiety are not always applicable in these situations. For the consulting community, this situation requires a new playbook.
In 2021, a study of 10,000 children and young people in 10 countries, co-authored and published in The Lancet Journal of Planetary Health, found that 59% were very or extremely worried about climate change, and more than 45% said climate change was negatively impacting their daily lives. A survey of mental health professionals in the UK, published last year in the Journal of Climate Change and Health, found that they felt "significantly more" patients described climate change as a factor affecting their mental health or emotional distress, and participants expected this increase to continue. Frustratingly, climate anxiety can also overlap with existing mental health issues, making it difficult to analyze in isolation.
* Shi told Bloomberg Green that when climate change is in the news, they typically see an increase in patients suffering from climate anxiety; This is usually at a UN climate conference, an important scientific report, or a severe weather event. Scientists studying climate change were among the first groups they saw experiencing this anxiety, and those groups are still struggling, Shi said. Nearly a fifth of nearly a Bloomberg Green Channel survey of nearly 300 readers about climate anxiety said they would discuss it with a mental health professional.
Natalie Warren, a 42-year-old British expat who lives in Sydney, Australia, and an interviewee told us that while she didn't accept **, she had a strong urge to act. Climate anxiety, she says, is different from previous mental health challenges: it's external, not internal.
"There's nothing wrong with people who suffer from climate anxiety," she said. "It's not them that need to be addressed. ”
So what exactly are the **divisions doing in their **room? The first point is that they did not make any diagnosis because anxiety about climate change is not a disease. Patrick Kennedy-Williams, a clinical psychologist in Oxford, England, said: "We think more that this is an understandable response to real and rational dangers. Working with people with social anxiety disorder or phobias is, in part, about "recalibrating their sense of risk and threat" — realigning fear with actual threat levels, he said. This is not usually the case with climate change, he said, because "the threat is real."
Moreover, there is no such thing as a "classic case" of climate or ecological anxiety. Some patients may need to discuss direct experiences of climate impacts, such as floods or wildfires destroying homes, while others may want to talk about their guilt when they see others suffering, or struggles with friends or family members who are dismissive or hostile to them. People may not even say they feel "anxious," he said, but instead use words like trauma, sadness and depression. "It doesn't quite fit into the way we think about mental health," Kennedy-Williams said, "probably because the climate crisis and our relationship to it is much more multifaceted than that." ”
Climate anxiety often ends up being tied to many other dilemmas in a person's normal life, including choices such as whether to have children, live in or what to do. Many of these issues are already highly stressful and emotional. He said that on the question of whether to have children in particular, Kennedy Williams saw "great pain" in the ** room.
Kennedy Williams likened his experience with patients suffering from climate anxiety to working with people with activity-limiting illnesses or medical difficulties where there is often no clear solution. "You can't just say, 'Actually, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about. I'm sure everything will be fine,'" he said. Instead, he tries to help patients "thrive and find joy in difficult circumstances."
Some anxieties are related to specific triggers that can be dealt with and addressed directly. But climate change is much more wide-ranging. Global warming cannot be solved by any one person, so it is impossible to gain confidence and control over the problem. "You can't solve this problem personally," Hickman said. "You can go and take advantage of it, be an activist, or do x, y, z, but it's a global problem. This is not personal. Many patients also feel like those in power are asleep at the wheel, she said, adding a sense that no one is in control.
Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of climate change anxiety is that it can also be linked to climate change denial. Experts say the two can be understood as different manifestations of the same feeling. "Conspiracy theorists are reassuring," Mr. Hickman said. "If you can't stand the anxiety, you'll trust people who give you false promises. ”
Overcoming all these emotions is the key to real action to solve the climate crisis. Louise Edgington, a British educational psychologist who specialises in climate psychology and works mainly in schools, said fear and disempowerment have led people to turn inward and focus on self-preservation and survivalism, rather than actually tackling climate change as a problem, which requires a more collective approach.
Happiness isn't just about hugging and feeling good," she said. "This is a key part of what we really need to change. ”
So how to solve this problem? Washington State teacher Leslie D'Enport has partnered with other professionals to develop a curriculum that seeks ways to address climate-related mental health issues. She highlighted two broad categories of coping strategies: internal and external.
She likens climate anxiety to holding a ball underwater. Eventually, your arm will get tired, and it will pop up out of nowhere – it can't be suppressed forever. Internal strategies can include learning to calm your nervous system, take a conscious break, and focus on your mental narrative. External strategies include finding ways to take action in whatever way is most appropriate, whether it's making a donation or joining a local community clean air organization.
I would say that half of our climate anxiety has to do with our sense of climate powerlessness," said Ray, who is also a professor and chair of environmental studies at Cal State U. Humboldt. Doing things with a group of people is more helpful than doing things alone. "The way to reduce climate anxiety is to be part of ...... collectivePeople care as much as you do. You're not the only one like that. ”
Channeling anxiety in this way can be translated into serious action. Ray said opposition to groups like the Dakota Pipeline and Pacific Climate Warriors is motivated in part by their desire to do something radical. It can also motivate others to run for office. Warren, an interviewee from Sydney with two young children who work in the financial industry, ran for local council and represented the Greens between 2017 and 2021.
One of many parents responding to the Bloomberg survey, Warren said she is now motivated by the inevitable conversation she will have with her sons one day. When they ask "How did you make things so bad?" and "Why don't people do anything?" She wanted something real to tell them: "I need to be able to tell them that I tried." ”