Recent studies have shown a direct relationship between high levels of global warming and increased levels of anxiety and stress in humans, in an interesting relationship linking climate and mental health for individuals.
Mental health experts have notified of the increasing number of patients suffering from high levels of stress due to the phenomenon of global warming and its effects.
Psychologist Caroline Hickman says climate anxiety is a "different beast," referring to the relatively recent discovery of the effects of climate change on mental health. Hickman added: "We do not know 100% how to deal with it."
"it would be a gross mistake to try to deal with it like other fears that we know well and have been around for decades. This is much worse," She explained.
In more severe cases, climate anxiety leads to an impairment in the ability to function in daily life. Children and youth in this category feel alienated from friends and family, anxious about the future, and intrusive thoughts about who will survive, according to a research study conducted by Hickman.
Suicide and Weather Obsession
Patients obsessively check severe weather patterns, read studies on climate change, and follow radical activism, with some even considering "suicide" as the only solution, destructively.
According to a report published by Bloomberg, Hickman is not the only expert who sees this issue. In her book "The Climate Anxiety Field Guide," Sarah Ray describes a student who was suffering from "eco-guilt that makes her hate herself deeply" to the point where she stopped consuming almost entirely, including food.
The fears that most people have about global warming are not clear-cut to this extent, and it may be challenging to pinpoint the exact nature of climate anxiety and what should be done about it.
For adults, there is still a "stigma" in acknowledging that it significantly affects their lives, but therapists say they are facing an increase in demand from clients who say that climate change has a deep impact on their mental health.
Studies indicate that anxiety is increasingly prevalent on a wide scale and current professional methods of dealing with anxiety are not always suitable in these situations. For the health consultancy community, the situation requires new rules of engagement.
Climate and Mental Health Issues
In 2021, a study of 10,000 children and youth in 10 countries, authored by Hickman and published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal, found that 59% were extremely or severely anxious about climate change, and more than 45% said it had a negative impact on their daily lives.
Likewise, a survey of mental health specialists in the UK, published last year in the Climate and Health journal, found that they see "a significantly larger number" of patients who describe climate change as a factor in their mental health or emotional distress, an increase the participants anticipated.
It is frustrating that climate anxiety can also intersect with existing mental health issues, making it difficult to analyze them in isolation.
Therapists told Bloomberg Green that they usually see a slight increase in the number of patients suffering from climate anxiety when climate change is in the news; often around the time of a United Nations climate conference, a major scientific report, or an episode of severe weather.
They said that scientists working in the field of climate change were among the first groups to see this type of anxiety, and these groups are still struggling.
Of nearly 300 people who responded to a survey of Bloomberg Green readers about climate anxiety, less than one in five said they discuss this issue with a mental health specialist.
One participant, Natali Warren, a 42-year-old British expat living in Sydney, Australia, said she felt a strong urge to act despite not receiving treatment, indicating that climate anxiety was different from previous mental health challenges: it was external, not internal.
Warren said, "There's nothing wrong with someone experiencing climate anxiety," "they're not the ones who need fixing."
Climate Anxiety Diagnosis
The most important question according to these studies and indicators linking climate and mental health is what do practitioners actually do in their therapy rooms?.
The first point is that they do not diagnose, as climate change anxiety is not a disorder.
Patrick Kennedy-Williams, a clinical psychologist based in Oxford, United Kingdom, says: "We consider it to be a rational and reasonable response to a genuine threat."
Williams believes that working with a person suffering from social anxiety or phobias involves partially "resetting their sense of risks and threats" and reorganizing fear with the actual level of threat, which is usually not the case with climate change, as the "threat is real."
There is no "classic case" of climate or environmental anxiety, and some patients may need to discuss their direct experience with climate impacts, such as floods or forest fires destroying homes, while others may want to talk about their guilt when witnessing others' suffering or their conflicts with friends or family who reject or ignore their activism.
