Further proof that cults inflict psychological damage to those who are members (first photo from story)
Climate change takes a toll on our minds, too
Psychologist Susie Burke tells the story of a woman who came to her for counselling after having her first child. Not because she was suffering from post-natal depression, but because she was “struggling with the enormity of what she had done.” She felt she had brought her child into a “world she knew was going to be a lot harsher and a lot less safe,” Burke told DW.
“She came to me when she was overwhelmed by this distress; questioning whether she had done the right thing. The fear she had for his future was really huge.”
Burke is an Australian psychologist and academic who specializes in eco-psychology. She treats people suffering mental illness as a result of climate change, and also recently set up a free hotline called the “Climate Change Psychological Support Network,” where Australians can call a qualified psychologist to talk through their feelings about environmental change.
“One of the very first things people need to do to engage properly with climate change is to acknowledge how they feel about it and talk about it,” Burke said.
The first thing they should be counseled to do is to give up fossil fuels, most trappings of 21st Century life, and make their lives carbon neutral while giving the majority of their money, and freedom, to government.
But as the emerging field of eco-psychology is revealing, climate change is taking a significant toll on our mental health too.
“For people who are hearing and paying attention to what is happening to the climate, it is a huge weight and anxiety and fear,” Burke said.
Having worked in the field for the past two decades, the psychologist describes observing people with “anxiety and depression, flat moods, helplessness and hopelessness, and anger,” as well as “guilt and shame.”
She said this latter feeling is common among people who might not have endured direct trauma and loss as a result of climate change, but who experience vicarious distress and are conscious of their part in the problem.
“They’re aware these things are happening and it’s not directly impacting them, but they know it’s going to have a bigger impact on their children in the future or people in other parts of the world.”
The further into the article you get, the nuttier it gets. One last excerpt
But it isn’t only those in the front line of environmental change who experience profound emotional responses and mental health impacts. For many people it is daunting to grasp the full implications of climate change, including coming to terms with their own role in it and how they can help as individuals.
Whether or not people are experiencing or observing firsthand rapid environmental changes, Cunsolo speaks of a “pervasive sense of dread and doom and anxiety.”
These people really are nuts.
