Climate Psychology Study Group

This group is organized by Alexandra Woollacott and Andrew Bryant. It is ongoing (as of March, 2022) and generally meets on the 3rd Friday of each month, from 4pm to 5:30 Pacific Time (on Zoom).

If you would like to hear about future meetings, please send an email to Andrew at: climateandmind@gmail.com

Introduction: In 1972, Harold Searles, one of the first analysts to write on ecological issues, posed the question:

Is not the general apathy in the face of pollution a statement that there is something so unfulfilling about the quality of human life that we react, essentially, as though our lives are not worth fighting to save?”

Twenty years later, Sandra Postel, a freshwater and ecosystem expert, argued that:

Psychology as much as science will thus determine the planet’s fate, because action depends on overcoming denial, among the most paralyzing of human responses. (Postel, 1992)

It has been called the fundamental mystery of our time that humans have been treating our planet, our only home, as though it were a disposable object or a “toilet Mother” (Weintrobe), even in the face of the glaring risk of climate change and ecological crisis. Similar to the existential threat of nuclear annihilation, ecological crisis is a threat we’ve grown accustomed to ignoring, even as it continues to have deep psychological implications.

Fortunately, much has been written about the relationship between psychology and nature; about how analytic thought can help explain climate-related denial, grief, and anxiety; and about how intrapsychic issues intersect with broader societal forces like colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy, to shape how we relate to our planet.

Each meeting focuses on a theme related to climate change, ecology, and psychology, and we discuss important readings and other media related to the nexus of climate, ecology, and psychoanalysis. While discussion follows the reading and other materials, the meetings allow participants to discuss their own personal experiences, and to explore clinical applications of the ideas raised.

This is a drop-in group - you are welcome to attend all the meetings; or attend only the ones that interest you. By registering, you will be placed on an email list and will receive a Zoom link for each meeting. While the focus is on application of these ideas to clinical practice, anyone with an interest in these topics is welcome to attend and participate.

  • Time: 3rd Friday evening of each month, 4-5:30pm Pacific Time [Seattle] (90 minutes) (formerly 7-8:30pm)

  • Format: Zoom

  • Registration: To register, please email Andrew Bryant at climateandmind@gmail.com. Please write “Climate Psychology Study Group” in the email subject. You will then be placed on an email list, and will receive a Zoom link and readings for each meeting.

  • Fee: None (contributions for the paid Zoom account [~$16 per month] are welcome and can be made at our ko-fi support page)

Record of Past Meeting Topics:

2021

  • Meeting 1 (January): Unconscious Processes Related to Climate Change

  • Meeting 2 (February): The Urgent Need for Climate-Aware Therapy

  • Meeting 3 (March): On Living and Dying Well: How Accepting Our Mortality Can Help Us Face the Climate Crisis

  • Meeting 4 (April): Anxiety and Psychological Defenses against Climate Change

  • Meeting 5 (May): Ecology and Feminism: Understanding the Interconnected Roots of Domination

  • Meeting 6 (June): Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the Climate Crisis

  • Meeting 7 (August): Climate Trauma

  • Meeting 8 (September): Children, Youth, and Climate

  • Meeting 9 (October): Ecological Attachment

  • Meeting 10 (November): Frameworks of Care

  • Meeting 11 (December): Decolonizing the Mind

2022

  • Meeting 12 (January): Climate Trauma

  • Meeting 13 (February): Bringing Deeptime Perspective to Climate Trauma

  • Meeting 14 (March): Psychedelics and Nature

  • Meeting 15 (April): Disturbances and Restoring Balance

  • Meeting 16 (September): Rewilding the Unconscious

  • Meeting 17 (October): Object Relations Theory & Ecology

  • Meeting 18 (November): Family planning and Nurturing in the age of Climate Change

2023

  • Meeting 19 (January): Ethics and Climate Change: How Then Shall We Live?

  • Meeting 20 (February): A Psyche the Size of the Earth

  • Meeting 21 (March): Despair & Empowerment: Joanna Macy's Vision for Collective Transformation

  • Meeting 22 (April): Psychology and The Bomb

  • Meeting 23 (October): The Ministry of the Future

  • Meeting 24 (November): Resilience and Mutual Aid

Meeting Details (past and future):

  • Meeting 1

    • Date: 1/15/2021

    • Topic: Unconscious Processes Related to Climate Change

    • Facilitator: Andrew Bryant

    • Reading: Rust, M. J. (2008). Climate on the couch: unconscious processes in relation to our environmental crisis. Psychotherapy and Politics International, 6(3), 157-170.

    • Supplementary Materials:

  • Meeting 2

  • Meeting 3

  • Meeting 4

    • Date: 4/16/2021

    • Topic: Anxiety and Psychological Defenses against Climate Change

    • Facilitator: Alexandra Woollacott & Andrew Bryant

    • Primary Reading:

      • Article: Haseley, D. (2019). Climate change: Clinical considerations. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 16(2), 109-115.

    • Supplemental Materials:

      • Chapter Excerpt: Orange, D. (2016). Climate Crisis, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics. Routledge, pp. 59-66.

      • Video: Institute of Psychoanalysis. (2016, February 20; 5 min.). Sally Weintrobe Interview: Disavowal. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/156104071

    • Discussion Questions:

      • According to the analysts, denial is a psychological defense. When forms of climate denial (like negation, or disavowal) come into play, how do they serve us?

      • What are the ways that people disavow the reality of climate change?

      • How might we - individually and collectively - begin to help each other engage with (take up) these issues more fully?

  • Meeting 5

    • Date: 5/21/2021

    • Topic: Ecology and Feminism: Understanding the Interconnected Roots of Domination

    • Facilitator: Alexandra Woollacott

    • Reading:

      • Shiva, V. (1993). The Impoverishment of the Environment: Women and Children Last. In M. Mies & V. Shiva (Eds.), Ecofeminism (pp. 70-89). Halifax, N.S: Fernwood Publications.

      • Mies, M. (1993). White Man’s Dilemma, His Search for what he has Destroyed. In M. Mies & V. Shiva (Eds.), Ecofeminism (pp. 132-162). Halifax, N.S: Fernwood Publications.

      • Johnson, A.E. and Wilkinson, K.K. (2020). Begin. In A.E. Johnson & K.K. Wilkinson (Eds.), All We Can Save (pp. xvii - xxiii). New York: Penguin Random House.

    • Discussion Questions:

      • According to Shiva, where did the development paradigm go wrong? How does ecologically disruptive economic activity create inequality?

      • Of man’s relationship to nature, Mies writes it can only be a sentimental one, that it cannot be real (p. 143). What does she mean by this? Can we apply this to how we observe men relating to women, colonized and enslaved peoples? 

  • Meeting 6

    • Date: 6/18/2021

    • Topic: Traditional Ecological Knowledge and the Climate Crisis

    • Facilitator: Joanne Halverson

    • Reading/Watching:

      • Schooling the World - https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/schooling-the-world-2010/ (1 hr, 4 minutes)

      • The Women's Kingdom - https://youtu.be/ublvgSLpe7A (22 minutes)

    • Discussion Questions:

      • How does a western worldview affect our relationship to nature?

      • What can we learn about mental wellbeing and sustainable living from people who live aligned with the earth and natural rhythms?

      • How does this learning relate to activism for the earth and social justice?

  • Meeting 7

    • Date: 8/20/2021

    • Topic: Climate Trauma

    • Facilitator: Emily Wright

    • Reading: Three essays on climate and trauma:

  • Meeting 8

    • Date: 9/17/2021

    • Topic: Children, Youth and Climate

    • Facilitator: Andrew Bryant

    • Reading: Two articles:

      • Hickman, C. (2020). We need to (find a way to) talk about… Eco-anxiety. Journal of Social Work Practice, 34(4), 411-424 [Note: If you are short on time, just read 411-414; and 419-422.]

      • Sanson, A. V., Van Hoorn, J., & Burke, S. E. (2019). Responding to the Impacts of the Climate Crisis on Children and Youth. Child Development Perspectives, 13(4), 201-207.

  • Meeting 9

    • Date: 10/15/2021

    • Topic: Ecological Attachment

    • Facilitator: Kat Darger

    • Reading:

      • Primary:

        • Jordan, M. (2009). Nature and self—An ambivalent attachment?. Ecopsychology, 1(1), 26-31.

      • Secondary:

        • Kurth, A. M., Narvaez, D., Kohn, R., & Bae, A. (2020). Indigenous nature connection: A 3-week intervention increased ecological attachment. Ecopsychology, 12(2), 101-117.

        • Schmitt, M. T., Neufeld, S. D., et al. (2021). “‘Indigenous’ Nature Connection? A Response to Kurth, Narvaez, Kohn, and Bae (2020)." Ecopsychology, 13(1), 64-67.

  • Meeting 10

    • Date: 11/19/2021

    • Topic: Frameworks of Care

    • Facilitator: Bob Berley

    • Reading:

      • Weintrobe, S. (2021). Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis: Neoliberal Exceptionalism and the Culture of Uncare

      • Book Discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTXlexDGy2A

      • Le Guin, Ursula K. “Vaster than Empires and more slow.”

  • Meeting 11

    • Date: December 10, 2021

    • Topic: Decolonizing the Mind

    • Facilitator: Barbera Easterlin

    • Reading:

  • Meeting 12

    • Date: January 21, 2022

    • Topic: Climate Trauma

    • Facilitator: Steve Benson

    • Reading:

      • Primary Reading: Woodbury, Z. (2019). CLIMATE TRAUMA: Towards a New Taxonomy of Traumatology. Ecopsychology.

      • Woodbury, Z. (2021). From Extinction Rebellion to Gaian Revolution: A Humane Response to the Climate Crisis. Global Witness: Regenerating Human Nature in the Fiery Cauldron of Climate Trauma.

      • https://ecopsychologynow.blog/2021/10/20/the-cure-for-climate-trauma/

  • Meeting 13

    • Date: February 18, 2022

    • Topic: Bringing Deeptime Perspective to Climate Trauma

    • Facilitator: Marianne Rowe

    • Primary Resources:

      • Journey of the Universe -- One-hour documentary film in which Brian Swimme traces the history of the Universe (human and all beings' history) from its origin in the Big Bang/Flaring Forth to present time. Trailer. Film (on Amazon Prime; also available on Curiosity)

      • "The New Story, told by Brian Swimme," 6-minute video that offers a good introduction of the perspective.

      • "Comprehensive Compassion," interview with Brian Swimme. The interview is from 2001, but could have happened this morning.

    • Additional resources to explore:

  • Meeting 14

  • Meeting 15

    • Date: April 15, 2022

    • Topic: Disturbances and Restoring Balance

    • Facilitator: Joanne Ho

    • Primary Resources:

      • Video lecture on ecosystem dynamics and the role of biodiversity (7 minutes): Andersen, Paul. "Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning and Resilience."

      • Video on disturbance ecology, and how disturbances shape water, light, and nutrient availability (15 minutes)

    • Supplemental Reading Material:

      • Johnstone, J et al. (2016). Changing disturbance regimes, ecological memory, and forest resilience. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 14(7), 369-378. [PDF link here]

    • Meeting 16

    • Meeting 17

      • Date: October 28, 2022

      • Topic: Object Relations Theory & Ecology

      • Facilitator: Andrew Bryant

      • Primary Resources:

        • Dodds, J. (2011). Chapter 6. “Object relations theory: A more ecological approach to mind.” (p. 57-73) from Psychoanalysis and ecology at the edge of chaos: Complexity theory, Deleuze, Guattari and psychoanalysis for a climate in crisis. Routledge.

      • Additional Readings:

        • Dodds, J. (2012). Sample from Chapter 4. “Classical psychoanalysis.” (p. 31-37)

    • A selection from Robert MacFarlane's Underland

    • Meeting 18

    • Meeting 19

    • Meeting 20

      • Date: February, 2023

      • Topic: A Psyche the Size of the Earth

      • Facilitator: Jennifer Fendya

      • Primary Readings:

    • Meeting 21

      • Date: March, 2023

      • Topic: Despair & Empowerment: Joanna Macy's Vision for Collective Transformation

      • Facilitator: Rebekah Hart

      • Primary Readings:

        • Three Chapters from World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal by Joanna Macy:

          • "The Gateway of Despair" (Ch. 3)

          • “The Greening of the Self" (Ch. 11)

          • "The Great Turning" (Ch. 15)

    • Meeting 22

      • Date: April, 2023

      • Topic: Psychology & the Bomb

      • Facilitator: Christine Wenc

      • Primary Readings:

        • A historical article by Ran Zwigenberg, published in 2018, "Healing a Sick World: Psychiatric Medicine and the Atomic Age"

        • A pamphlet called "Children and the Threat of Nuclear War" (1962) by Sibylle Escalona, chief psychologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the 1950s [The pamphlet text was also part of a 1964 book by the same name published by the Child Study Association of America].

        • An article by Milton Schwebel called "The Study of Stress and Coping in the Nuclear Age: A New Speciality" (1986) [At the time of its publication he was emeritus professor of psychology at Rutgers. He also contributed a chapter to Children and the Threat of Nuclear War].

      • Additional Resources:

        • Schwebel's 1964 chapter from Children and the Threat of Nuclear War book, called "What do they think about war?"

        • A historical article published in 2022 called "'Wars Begin in the Minds of Men': Psychiatry and the Cold War Antinuclear Movement.

        • For the entire 1964 text of Children and the Threat of Nuclear War: https://archive.org/details/childrenthreatof0000unse

    • Meeting 23

      • Date: October, 2023

      • Topic: The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

      • Facilitator: Kathleen Wells, PhD

      • Primary Reading: The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

    • Meeting 24

      • Date: November, 2023

      • Topic: Resilience and Mutual Aid

      • Facilitator: Andrew Bryant

      • Primary Readings: To Be Determined!