Climate Aware Therapy

Awareness Of Our Changing Climate Can Impact Many Aspects Of Our Health

In addition to emotional distress, you may also experience troubling or intrusive thoughts that make social interactions frustrating or isolating. You may find the news hard to tolerate. You might not know where to place your focus, devote your energy, or spend your time.

Your career may not align with your values, which can fuel a sense of helplessness or shame about complicity. Or maybe you exhaust yourself trying to make a difference and then struggle to find balance in your life as a result. Perhaps you are using more alcohol, drugs, caffeine, or tobacco – or you’re falling away from your healthier routines and habits.

If you’re worried about extreme weather events, our collective future, or the legacy we are leaving behind for others, Climate Aware Therapy can help you become more resilient, feel more prepared, and help you connect with a sense of meaning and purpose. As an eco-aware therapist, I can help you build a life that aligns with your truths, values, and hopes for a better future.

Climate Change Exacts A Toll On Us All

Increasingly, the weather has become front-page news with stark images of damage and intense personal stories of loss. Here in Western North Carolina, since Hurricane Helene, the illusion of living in an environmentally safe haven has been shattered. 

It has become more difficult to get home insurance, while the cost of living keeps going up. Still, many suffer with climate guilt – knowing that we are all, on some level, responsible for the damage we are seeing. Yet our current economy thrives on growth, which requires the consumption of resources that is incompatible with the long-term health of our planet. Wrapping our minds around all of this is so very hard.

Many People Have No One To Share Their Climate Concerns With

Although studies show that the majority of people in every country worry about the environment and climate change, most people are not openly talking about it. There are many reasons for this. However, as a result, so much gets left unsaid. 

It can also be difficult to communicate about climate change because somehow it has become such a polarizing issue even among family and friends. In the end, we focus on raising kids and putting food on the table because we feel too small to make a difference or have no idea where to start. 

However, the truth is that you do have the power to make a difference. Through Eco-Aware Therapy and Climate Aware Counseling, you can work on processing overwhelming emotions, like grief and anxiety, while building skills for creating the change you want to see in the world.

Climate Aware Therapy Gives You A Common Ally In Your Fight 

I believe it’s important to have spaces where we can voice, reflect upon, and feel our feelings – spaces where we can make connections between what we experience and how we live our lives. Climate Aware Therapy offers you just that: a safe, empathetic place where you can express yourself, learn how to be present, and find ways of coping with overwhelming emotions. 

Together, we can grieve losses, bear the weight of challenges, reflect upon options, and discover a greater sense of agency, meaning, and hope. I’ll help you to identify and engage in practices that will enable you to feel more alive and connected to yourself and others. 

What Is A Typical Climate Conscious Counseling Session Like?

My job is to be sensitive to wherever you are and supportive of whatever you are going through. That means I’ll listen to you deeply, never minimizing your perceptions nor dismissing your concerns. Instead, I want to face those realities with you. At the same time, I’m not here to tell you what to do. Rather, I want to help you discover what is true and right for you.

Some things we can work on in Climate Aware Therapy sessions include:

• • Presencing: Observing and honoring reactions without judgment. Feeling grounded – safely connecting with self, life, and others – even amid current or anticipated disruptions. Building resilience and improving your ability to cope with and regulate intense emotions. 

• • Purposing: Working through challenges, building endurance, and finding Adversity-Based Growth. Creating a life of meaning centered around your values, goals, and what’s truly important to you.

What Kind Of Approach Do I Use For Climate Aware Counseling?

I like to use a creative blend of systems-aware, cognitive, and body-oriented approaches that take into account various factors that may be contributing to the presented distress. Oftentimes, we don’t initially recognize how seemingly unrelated symptoms, behaviors, or other life events are actually interconnected in our overall situation. It can be quite effective when we create a treatment plan that looks at the larger picture. 

To do that, I draw upon evidence-informed strategies including:

• • Psychological First Aid (PFA), which involves approaching clients with a high level of sensitivity and compassion throughout our work together; respectfully gathering information to meet the most immediate needs first; promoting feelings of safety, stability, and a sense of orientation; managing the initial shock of trauma while avoiding re-traumatization and providing basic information about common stress reactions.  

• • Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR) for addressing practical problems, developing coping strategies, engaging in helpful thinking, managing strong reactions, unwinding ineffective behaviors, identifying positive activities, connecting with healthy social support, and finding tangible resources. 

I utilize aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and other expressive modalities to create a holistic, mind-body approach to healing. 

Perhaps most importantly, I know what it is like to realize the seriousness of our planetary predicament – to experience all the intense emotions you are feeling. I have also studied the subject in-depth and will do my best to find ways to bring my talents, skills, and personhood to the table. As an active member and volunteer with the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, I have both attended and facilitated numerous climate-conscious therapeutic gatherings. 

Whatever You Are Going Through, You Have An Ally Here

The fact that you’re stressed out or even in crisis shows that you truly care about our world and the beings in it—and that should be admired. Working with a climate-conscious, eco-aware therapist gives you an ally who understands your passion and your pain – someone who can guide you without bias or agenda toward a greater sense of peace, hope, and purpose in life.