Climate anxiety and PTSD are on the rise. Therapists don’t always know how to cope

Isobel Whitcomb, ‘Climate anxiety and PTSD are on the rise. Therapists don’t always know how to cope’, https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/20/climate-emergency-anxiety-threapists, The Guardian, Guardian News & Media Limited (20 Apr 2021)

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recognizes climate change as a growing threat to mental health, but many mental health professionals feel unequipped to handle the growing number of people anxious and grieving over the state of the planet. (…) Therapists in a few subspecialties, such as eco-therapy, train specifically to integrate environmental awareness into their work with clients. But these therapists make up a small percentage of the field, and the vast majority of people don’t have access to climate-informed therapy. (…) Eco-anxiety is a natural response to a threat. And this is a very real threat. (…) The reason we’re in this mess with the climate emergency is because we look at it as separate to ourselves. (…) Climate change is the context in which we’re doing therapy. (…) And it can’t be left out of therapy.