Developing a Climate-Aware Practice: Working with Eco-Anxiety and Environmental Grief

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’s time to add a climate psychology lens to our assessment and treatment

According to a poll form 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.

Using a trauma-informed approach, this course 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 reimagining a new relationship with the world. Emotional resiliency tools specific to climate concerns will be taught that can immediately be incorporated into clinical practice.

Course 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. • Differentiate between eco-anxiety and other clinical presentations of anxiety. • Discuss emotional resiliency tools, drawing on self-regulation approaches from neuroscience.

EPDC CE Hours: 6

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/.