At Safe Landing, emotional support has always been a key feature of our group as we’ve had to come to terms with difficult truths facing our industry. We look forward to welcoming Caroline Hickman to our next Expert Talk.
Watch the recording below:
Caroline is a practicing psychotherapist and member of the Climate Psychology Alliance she has been developing a range of therapeutic approaches to ecological distress including a psychological assessment model for eco-anxiety, and delivered workshops in climate psychology, emotional resilience, and mental health internationally. Caroline is a lecturer at the University of Bath researching children and young people’s emotional responses to climate change in the UK, Brazil, The Maldives, Nigeria & USA for 10 years examining eco- anxiety & distress, eco-empathy, trauma, moral injury, and the impact of climate anxiety on relationships. She is co- lead author on a 2021 quantitative global study into 10,000 children & young people’s emotions & thoughts about climate change published in The Lancet Planetary Health. Watch her TEDX talk here.
It’s understood that we all suffer from a form of eco-anxiety but for most of us this is subconscious. Given the pressures of our time will undoubtedly be impacting us whilst we work on solving these challenges, here’s some food for thought from Caroline ahead of the talk:
“Apocalyptic disaster or transformational moment in history?
As we become aware of the scale and speed of the threats to the biosphere, our emotional responses mirror our increased concern in both intensity and complexity, and we need to navigate binary splits of hope and optimism and ‘doom & gloom’ pessimism. Eco anxiety, grief and despair are all now recognised as understandable and rational human responses to the developing crisis. Conversations about climate change will bring us face to face with feelings of vulnerability and uncertainty but are also essential if we are to develop the emotional resilience that humanity needs to face this uncertain future.”
Caroline gave a 30-minute presentation which was recorded, followed by 30 minutes for Q&A and open discussion.
This was a unique opportunity to learn from someone who is really at the leading edge of climate aware psychology.