Climate Distress: A Review of Current Psychological Research and Practice

Abstract

Environmental disasters will increase in frequency and severity due to disruptions to Earth systems, including increased global mean temperatures, caused by human activity, and consequently our health care system will be burdened by ever-increasing rates of illness, mental and physical. Psychologists will need to respond to this pressure by ensuring they have the training, education and interventions to respond to climate-related distress, as well as realising the limits of the therapeutic approach. Climate psychology, a recent field of study integrating and advancing core expertise around climate distress, has become more prominent with the increasing urgency of climate change and emerging documentation of its impacts on mental health and wellbeing. The purpose of this scoping review is to survey the research being undertaken on climate distress, and to identify gaps in the existing literature with a view to shaping practice and informing future research. Younger people, notably, are experiencing climate distress disproportionately and will bear a larger share of the mental health burden caused by climate change, and yet their voices are underrepresented in theoretical and practical interventions. Enlisting young people as research collaborators and co-designers will facilitate more effective responses to the psychological aspects of the climate crisis.