Climate Psychology Presentations and Climate Conscious Therapy

In 2020, after a long career as a clinician, Barbara resumed her deep interest in ecology, environmental psychology, and the mental health impacts of the climate crisis. She is available for public and professional talks and trainings on this topic. Specific interests include the psychology of climate change denial, climate anxiety, despair and grief about what we is being lost on this planet, the social, racial, cultural, and economic justice issues arising from climate change, compassionate approaches to addressing our complicity in the problem (it turns out that guilt and ambivalence are normal, but unproductive), and opening pathways to climate justice action and activism. She is especially interested in mitigating burnout and overwhelm in people who work in the domains of climate science and activism.

Although we know a climate crisis is looming, for the most part we do not engage in behaviors that will change it, at least in the wealthier countries that contribute the most to global warming.    Most of us experience the rumblings of cognitive dissonance between our consumption and the recognition of how this impacts the environment, but we are unsure about what to do about it. 

Climate research and climate crisis communications typically focus on physical impacts like more extreme storms, rising sea levels, and increasingly severe droughts.  This messaging is disturbing and often leaves people feeling helpless, guilty, complicit, and afraid.  Young adults talk about not wanting to have children out of concern that the planet is going to change so rapidly that it will not be a secure environment for the next generation or losing motivation to pursue education or career aspirations.  Psychological impacts on humans of the toll of climate crisis on the human psyche, the relatively unexplored pathways towards healthy resolution of climate change as well as the psychological barriers that limit climate change thoughts, discussion, and action have received comparatively little attention.

Barbara has developed solutions based programs for mental health clinicians to address climate anxiety, ambivalence, and confusion that arise in their practices and also to validate and empower people who are struggling with these feelings. She also offers climate aware therapy on an individual basis through her private practice.