Last season, Matt, Sarinah and I did a roundtable episode about eco-anxiety, where we explored our own triggers and coping mechanisms, and whether we retained any hope whatsoever with so much bad news constantly going around. I wanted to delve into this topic further and, via my association with another environmental organisation, I thought I knew who the perfect person would be - Dr Aura Goldman. Aura is a psychotherapist who, amongst other accolades, specialises in eco-anxiety and the plethora of other climate and environmental emotions that my fellow nature lovers may encounter.
Artwork by Jasmine Hortop
As someone who works in the environmental sector on a daily basis, I am prone to bouts of despair, grief and sometimes a complete lack of will to go on. Turns out, I’m not alone. There is heaps of research going into these feelings as the moment, and Aura shared some great resources that I’ve listed below. For this episode, I spoke to fellow environmentalists about the emotions they encounter due to their activism, and ran them past Aura as case studies. Her advice is awesome, and I hope that anyone who listens who has encountered these emotions themselves takes something from this episode - I kind of see it as a group therapy session for my fellow environmentalists! There are many nuggets of wisdom that I’ve taken away from this interview that I’ll be calling upon next time any of these emotions rear their head.
Extra resources:
Open University: Understanding climate psychology
Frontiers in Psychology Eco-anxiety: What it is and why it Matters
Environmentalist group therapy with Dr Aura Goldman