Psychotherapy for a planet in crisis

Knowing there is an ecological crisis happening around us, which may reach a critical point in our lifetimes, and which is not being taken seriously by governments or by the general public, is difficult to live with.   Maybe that’s why so many of us refuse to acknowledge the scope of the threat.   I believe that the ecological crisis has a psychological impact on all of us. Regardless of how much in denial we are, our unconscious knows that something is up.  

Seeing denial all around us can make us wonder if we are the ones who are going mad.  Or, we might feel guilt at our own role in the crisis, or deep grief at the loss of many species and the threatened loss of our beautiful home planet.   Many of us can feel so overwhelmed that we become frozen into inaction.  

Psychotherapy can be helpful in facing our thoughts and feelings in a supportive environment.  And whilst of course psychotherapy cannot solve the ecological crisis, it can help us bear living a little more easily, can help us consider who we want to be in response and can even free us up enough that we might take action (or perhaps allow ourselves to rest a little).

To Speak, by Denise Levertov

To speak of sorrow

works upon it

                   moves it from its

crouched place barring

the way to and from the soul’s hall