Category: Climate Change
Eric Lewandowski, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Psychologist
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Croton-on-Hudson, New York
Eric Lewandowski, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Psychologist
NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Croton-on-Hudson, New York
Susan Clayton, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Professor
The College of Wooster
Wooster, Ohio
Jedidiah Siev, Ph.D.
Associate professor
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
Sarah Schwartz, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Associate Professor
Suffolk University
Boston, Massachusetts
Kyle Hill, M.P.H., Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Assistant Professor, Department of Indigenous Health
University of North Dakota, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Indigenous Health
Saint Paul, Minnesota
David Valentiner, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Professor
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, Illinois
As the impacts of climate change escalate, so too do threats to human health and well-being. Increasingly, the effect of climate change on mental health is being recognized, presenting an imperative for the mental health community to understand this impact and respond (e.g. Clayton, Manning, Speiser & Hill, 2021). Psychologists are uniquely trained to understand emotional responses to climate change, develop and provide appropriate supportive, clinical, behavioral and community interventions. This symposium will showcase the work of psychologists working in multiple areas of mental health and climate change, including in the assessment of normative and clinical manifestations of emotions and thoughts related to climate change, the impact of individual and group engagement on mental health and well-being, community and cultural engagement in indigenous groups, and the application of behavior change principles to support constructive responses to climate change. The goals of this symposium are to introduce aspects of the emerging science of climate change and mental health and examples of psychologists applying their training and skills to this area of paramount importance.
The first paper reviews the range of emotional responses to climate change, including anxiety, grief, guilt, and anger. In particular, it highlights moral distress as an important feature of this response and presents findings on the development of a new scale for its assessment. The paper will discuss the relevance of assessing moral distress, its connection to negative mental health outcomes, and its implications for intervention.
The second paper presents data from two studies assessing climate anxiety and its relationship to symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, as well with cognitive patterns including catastrophization, intolerance of uncertainty, fear of guilt, and concerns of generativity. Findings offer guidance in identifying vulnerability factors associated with climate anxiety, and suggest directions for demarcating normative experiences of anxiety from clinically relevant ones.
The third paper presents mixed method results from a survey of undergraduate students examining interrelationships between climate anxiety and clinical outcomes including Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. Results in particular highlight the impact of hope and purpose and implications for clinical and community intervention.
The fourth paper presents findings from community-based participatory research with an American Indian sample to understand the mental health benefits of Indigenous Eco-Relations Engagement, a group of practices including traditional cultural and spiritual activities and language use.
The fifth paper presents results from three studies that apply the stages of change framework to the development and maintenance of climate change attitudes, in particular the phenomenon of climate change denial. The paper presents data on the relationship between climate change denial and climate anxiety and reviews results of a self-affirmation intervention aimed to reduce climate change denial, with reference to the stages of change model and the anxiety reduction function of climate change denial.
