Effective therapies needed to halt rise in eco-anxiety, says psychology professor

(Press-News.org) More must be done to address the growth in anxiety related to climate change, says a leading psychologist, before it becomes the next mental health crisis.

In his book Understanding Climate Anxiety, Geoff Beattie documents how climate anxiety is on the rise, especially amongst young people. Yet support is limited and sufferers face stigma because of the polarised debate around whether the climate crisis even exists, he says.

Understanding Climate Anxiety offers psychological tips and guidance on how to handle climate anxiety, especially important in the current political landscape which has seen a shift away from green targets.

“Climate anxiety is growing. It can be overwhelming and induce a form of psychological ‘eco‑paralysis’, impacting on both sleep and daily activities,” writes Professor Beattie from Edge Hill University.

Strategies outlined in the book include processing thoughts, feelings and fears about climate change by writing them down. He points out that research has demonstrated  that mental well-being  can be improved in people who are asked to write personal narratives over several days about their difficult emotional experiences.

“Reducing climate anxiety, and helping people deal more effectively with their negative emotions regarding climate change, is a pressing issue for us all. We need people to overcome their feelings of helplessness through this disinhibition of thoughts and feelings, and understand that positive action and change is possible,” Professor Beattie adds. The book is timely especially given that 2024 was the hottest year on record, and research suggests that one in five young people are afraid to bring children into a warming world.

However, climate change deniers reject the clear consensus amongst scientists that climate change is happening.

Understanding Climate Anxiety reviews the scientific evidence on climate change and discusses anxiety and other emotions triggered by this. It explains why it’s becoming so prevalent, and how it differs from other types of anxiety.

The book describes climate anxiety as a new type of anxiety shaped by the modern world and ‘the high carbon economies and industries that have flourished since the industrial revolution’.

Climate anxiety is caused by fear of environmental doom but experts disagree on how the condition should be measured and defined. Professor Beattie says this chronic form of psychological distress does not fit neatly with other clinically recognised forms of anxiety.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-5), the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States and internationally, does not currently include climate anxiety and no specific support exists in national health services.

Professor Beattie points out that others forms of new trauma like ‘shell shock’ arising from the prolonged trench warfare of the First World War, were also slow to be clinically recognised. These days we refer to shell shock as ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’.

The broadcaster and academic says the scepticism and hostility targeted at people with climate change anxiety is similar in some respects to that shown towards traumatised troops in WWI: “Extraordinary now, when we look back,” he says.

He points out that climate change denial is a major factor for climate anxiety being dismissed as a hysterical reaction with many high-profile global figures dismissing the climate crisis as fiction.

A high-profile figure who has talked openly about the climate crisis and her own severe climate anxiety is activist Greta Thunberg.

This led to her ‘our house is on fire’ speech to the World Economic Forum in 2019. Professor Beattie says millions disregarded her message because it instilled too much fear without simultaneously telling them what they could do to change things. He writes: “Greta Thunberg was trying to remove all doubt with her simple message, with no ambiguity and no window dressing. But the problem is that too much fear in any message without addressing the issues of self-efficacy is also not an effective way of gaining compliance.”

Instead, Professor Beattie says people need to feel strong and empowered that they have ‘agency’ to change the future of the Earth in a positive way through their individual, societal and political actions. There is hope, but change begins with us.”

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