Dr. Susan Clayton - Climate Anxiety

Thoughts on Record: Podcast of the Ottawa Institute of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Mental health professionals have increasingly been seeing clients seeking services related to anxiety and depression stemming from serious, negative changes that have been occurring in our climate. Psychologist and professor, Dr. Susan Clayton, who is one of the world's authorities on how the environment impacts upon psychological factors joins us for a discussion in which we cover:

• how the environment & climate impacts upon psychological well-being and functioning generally
• a working definition of climate anxiety (and associated terms which are frequently used in this context)
• the prevalence and nature of clinically significant climate anxiety and whether our current level of anxiety about the environment should even be considered disordered given the challenges we are facing
• a historical & evolutionary perspective on our attunement to the environment as humans and why it is hard for us to make realistic threat appraisals
• the pull for current climate challenges to evoke nihilism and the role grief work could potentially play in contending with emergent distress related to the climate
• other forms of psychological symptoms that we know can originate from climate change aside from anxiety
• helping individuals to identify resources that will augment their sense of effective coping
• linking a sustainable stance towards the environment with core human values and meaning
• Dr. Clayton's suggestions around effective coping for those experiencing climate anxiety

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Susan Clayton , Ph.D., is the Whitmore-Williams Professor and Chair of Psychology at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Dr. Clayton’s research examines people’s relationship with the natural environment, how it is socially constructed, and how a healthy relationship with nature can be promoted. She has written about the effects of climate change on mental health, and has developed a scale to assess climate anxiety. She is author or editor of six books, including Identity and the Natural Environment, Conservation Psychology, and Psychology and Climate Change, and is currently the editor of the Cambridge Elements series in Applied Social Psychology and on the editorial board for journals such as the Journal of Environmental Psychology and Sustainability. A fellow of the American Psychological Association and the International Association of Applied Psychology, she was a lead author on the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.