This blog is authored by Meg McMorrow, MA, QMHP, a member of the IntraSpectrum Counseling clinical team.
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This blog is written on Chicaquoa Land, the unceded homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other groups, like the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, and Sac and Fox, also called this area home. I acknowledge and honor that this blog discusses the Indigenous lands of Turtle Island, the ancestral name for what now is called North America.
Chicago has seen unusually warm weather this fall season (part of which I’m sure we’re loving!). This stretch of warm temperatures and the recent devastation caused by Hurricanes Helene and Milton in Southeastern US communities are some examples of climate-related events that seem ever-growing. Climate concerns such as these could be connected to an unpleasant shift in your mind and body. You may be loaded with complex and uncomfortable feelings as you try to understand the impact of climate crisis on your mental well-being.
Climate Crisis and Mental Well-Being
The emotional toll of witnessing environmental degradation or even recognizing the looming crisis may lead to what’s broadly known as ecological stress/distress, ecological trauma, or climate crisis-induced mental health struggles. These have been more specifically termed eco-grief, eco-anxiety, and solastalgia. Such experiences are noticed not only in our own nervous system, but are being recognized in the mental health field and greater society as well. While these are diagnostic terms, which I use here for ease of understanding, such terms can be pathologizing or deemed psychologically “abnormal.” It’s important to understand that your feelings are not “abnormal” – they are valid, common responses to the current conditions of climate change. Climate-induced distress is not a sign of individual dysfunction but rather a reflection of our present circumstances.
- Eco-grief describes the emotional response brought about by climate destruction and loss of nature, such as species, ecosystems, and landscapes due to environmental changes.
- Eco-anxiety describes the worry people feel from constantly facing serious problems caused by climate change. It may look like experiences of feeling fear, sadness, and worry about a warming planet.
- Solastalgia describes the sadness and isolation that comes from losing comfort in or identity with one’s home environment due to climate change. This term is often used to describe the feelings of displacement after experiencing a severe weather event related to climate change.
Intersectional Feminist Theory (IFT)
Intersectional feminist theory seeks to understand how overlapping identities—such as race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic status—impact individuals’ psychological experiences and mental health. It challenges traditional psychological theories that may treat these identities as separate or secondary; IFT instead recognizes that people navigate multiple, interconnected systems of oppression and privilege within their varied identities. This perspective highlights how psychological well-being, identity formation, and experiences of trauma or resilience can vary significantly based on the interplay of these intersecting identities, and calls for more inclusive, context-focused approaches to therapy.
IFT and Climate Crisis
As a therapist, I use IFT as a basic framework in general and primarily when working with clients experiencing climate crisis-induced mental health struggles. IFT suggests that increasing natural disasters, environmental degradation, and ecological stress and trauma are deeply intertwined with systemic inequalities connected to intersecting identities, such as race, class, ability, gender, sexual orientation, and so on. This perspective illuminates the disproportionate impact of climate crisis on underrepresented communities, especially those of lower socioeconomic status and People of the Global Majority (PoGM), including Black and Brown people and Indigenous and Latinx populations. Historically, these groups contribute the least to worsening climate conditions while often bearing the brunt of environmental disasters, resource depletion, and displacement due to social positioning.
IFT Therapy
Here are some ways a therapist specializing in IFT may work with clients to address climate crisis-related mental health concerns:
- Trauma-Informed Care: If you are experiencing eco-grief, eco-anxiety, solastalgia, or ecological trauma, your therapist may consider exploring trauma-informed approaches to care. Understanding that climate crisis is a form of systemic and collective trauma is an essential starting point. Together your therapist can help you navigate these complex emotions by validating your grief and acknowledging the systemic forces at play that contribute to climate crisis.
- Resilience-Building through Empowerment: Your therapist can support you in developing coping strategies that emphasize empowerment rather than despair. A feminist approach would focus on self-empowerment to reclaim agency in your life and create meaningful paths towards mental wellness. Your therapist can empower you to recognize your strength and resistance to oppressive systems, even in the context of climate-related struggles, thus fostering resilience and hope.
- Community and Collective Care: Many intersectional feminist and anti-oppressive frameworks highlight the importance of community in healing. Your therapist may invite and collaborate with you in building networks of support within your communities, which can reduce feelings of isolation while combatting ecological stress. Engaging in collective activism, from community gardens to advocacy work, can also foster a sense of agency, which is crucial in mitigating helplessness and hopelessness in the face of climate crisis.
- Decolonizing and Reconnecting with Nature: Your therapist may incorporate decolonial approaches that honor Indigenous knowledge and practices of environmental stewardship and healing. In many Indigenous communities, healing is connected to land and nature, and this perspective can offer powerful ways to address ecological stress by fostering reconnection with the natural world.
- Cultural Humility and Intersectional Awareness: A feminist therapist can recognize how individuals from different cultural and social backgrounds may experience climate crisis uniquely. By tailoring therapeutic interventions with cultural humility and an awareness of these intersections, your therapist can help validate your unique lived experiences.
- Self-Compassion and Emotional Labor: Your therapist can help you navigate the emotional labor you may be carrying, especially those of us who are caregivers or activists. Your therapist can encourage practices of self-compassion and boundary-setting to protect your mental health and sustain long-term well-being.
As we see above, therapy can be a critical space for processing the emotional impact of climate crisis, offering clients tools to navigate such concerns. For those of us struggling with this, therapy (from an intersectional feminist perspective) can offer:
- A Safe Space to Process Grief and Anger: Climate-related feelings can be overwhelming and include grief over environmental loss, anger at systemic injustice, and a sense of powerlessness. Therapy provides a safe space to unpack these emotions without judgment.
- Normalizing Ecological Stress: Climate crisis-related struggles are a rational response to an existential crisis. A therapist can help normalize these feelings, ensuring that you understand your reactions are valid and part of a growing collective consciousness around environmental issues.
- Action-Oriented Approaches: In the face of hopelessness, therapy can help foster an action-oriented mindset, while encouraging you to engage in individual and collective actions that align with your values, helping you feel more in control.
- Fostering Hope and Connection: Therapy can be a space to cultivate hope and resilience, helping you move from despair to connection. Your therapist can offer techniques like mindfulness, nature-based interventions, and grounding practices to help you reconnect with your environments in positive ways.
- Addressing Systemic Issues: Therapy can support you in acknowledging and working through the larger systemic issues that exacerbate climate crisis impacts, such as racism, capitalism, patriarchy, and classism, without solely internalizing the burden.
Therapy through a feminist lens can provide a holistic, inclusive, and intersectional approach. It seeks to validate your unique lived experiences, challenge oppressive systems, and empower you to face the challenges of climate change with inner peace, agency, resilience, and a deeper connection to community and nature.
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This blog is authored by Meg McMorrow, MA, QMHP, a member of the IntraSpectrum Counseling clinical team. IntraSpectrum Counseling is Chicago’s leading psychotherapy practice dedicated to the LGBTQ+ community. Every day, we strive to provide the highest quality mental health care for clients of all ages and across the spectrum of identities. For anyone needing affirming and validating support or healing with any issue, please click here or email us at help@intraspectrum-chicago.com.
