The New York Times
Climate Change Enters The Therapy Room
PORTLAND, Ore. —
It would hit Alina Black in the snack aisle at Trader Joe’s, a wave of guilt and shame that made her skin crawl.
Something as simple as nuts. They came wrapped in plastic, often in layers of it, that she imagined leaving her house and traveling to a landfill, where it would remain through her lifetime and the lifetime of her children...
She longed, really longed, to make less of a mark on the earth. But she had also had a baby in diapers, and a full-time job... these conflicting forces were slowly closing on her, like a set of jaws.
In the early-morning hours, after nursing the baby, she would slip down a rabbit hole, scrolling through news reports of droughts, fires, mass extinction. Then she would stare into the dark.
Eco-anxiety, a concept introduced by young activists, has entered a mainstream vocabulary…
The Good Grief Network, a peer support network modeled on 12-step addiction programs, has spawned more than 50 groups; professional certification programs in climate psychology have begun to appear.
Dr. Doherty… one of the most visible authorities on climate in psychotherapy…after graduating from Columbia University... fell in naturally with the discipline of “ecopsychology.”… as he put it, a “woo-woo area,” with colleagues delving into shamanic rituals and Jungian deep ecology…
Ms. Black was not interested in theoretical arguments; she needed help right away…
The plastic toys in the bathtub made her anxious. The disposable diapers made her anxious. She began to ask herself, what is the relationship between the diapers and the wildfires?...
Recent research... A 10-country survey of 10,000 people aged 16 to 25… found... 45% percent of respondents said worry about climate negatively affected their daily life.
Three-quarters said they believed “the future is frightening” and 56% said “humanity is doomed.”
