Building a Climate Aware Practice: 3 hour course

3 CEs Recorded: Summer, 2024

As clinicians, we assess a client’s mental health by considering features such as job and relationship stressors, past trauma, and family history. But emotional distress triggered by climate change is already showing up in our practices and will only increase in the coming years. It is time to add a climate psychology lens to our assessment and treatment.

An article in the Seattle Times, “Report: Fires, heat waves cause ‘climate anxiety’” on June 15, 2022, highlights the distress many health officials dub “climate anxiety.” The article says, “health officials say the impacts of climate change, including more devastating wildfires, heat waves, drought and poor air quality, are fueling “climate anxiety.”

The article goes on to say that “The report underlines that marginalized communities are more likely to experience adverse health effects from climate change, and notes that “emerging research is showing similar disproportionate burdens in terms of mental health.”

According to a poll from the American Psychiatric Association (October 2020), 67% of Americans are somewhat or extremely anxious about the impact of climate change on the planet, and 51% notice an impact on their own mental health. The toll is even greater among teens. The National Institutes of Health reported that nearly 1 in 3 teens ages 13 to 18 experience an anxiety disorder, with climate themes being a primary trigger. For many, worries about the future have grown into persistent existential dread. U

Using a trauma-informed approach, this workshop will teach skillful ways for clients to bring their fear, ambivalence, and disenfranchised grief out into the open with empathetic validation. Assisting clients in navigating the emotional grip of climate distress makes space for heightened curiosity and re-imagining a new relationship with the world. Emotional resiliency tools specific to climate concerns that can immediately be incorporated into clinical practice will be taught.

Workshop objectives

Provide trauma-informed perspectives for addressing eco-anxiety and grief.
Examine emerging models of climate psychology and their clinical applications.
Explain ways to incorporate climate distress assessment into clinical practice.
Explore climate distress as an intersectional concern from a social justice perspective.
Provide emotional resiliency tools, drawing on self-regulation approaches.

EPDC CE Hours: 3

Presenter: Leslie Davenport

Leslie Davenport is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in practice for more than 25 years who is currently working as a Climate Psychology educator and consultant. She is the author of three books, including Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change: A Clinician’s Guide. Her fourth book written for young tweens, All the Feelings Under the Sun: A Kid's Guide to Coping with Climate Change, will be released Spring 2021 though the American Psychological Association's children's book division, Magination Press. She is currently on faculty with the School of Professional Psychology and Health at the California Institute for Integral Studies. For more information, visit https://lesliedavenport.com/about-leslie/.