Eco-Anxiety in Children and Young People – A Rational Response, Irreconcilable Despair, or Both?

ABSTRACT

This paper will present research and clinical material exploring how eco-anxiety can be felt and thought about by children and young people. It will then discuss the importance of understanding the range of climate anxiety found in practice ranging from mild to medium to significant, severe, and critical climate distress. Frequently eco-anxiety is perceived as a singular emotional and cognitive experience, and all too often seen through adult eyes. This scale drawn from clinical practice attempts to differentiate between the different experiences children and young people can have by drawing on international clinical and research evidence. It will look at the individual, relational, collective, and planetary trauma as experienced by children and young people. The paper will finish with clinical practice considerations.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate anxiety
• children
• young people
• moral injury
• planetary trauma

Introduction

There is a growing understanding of the impact on mental health – the distress, confusion, and anxiety that follows increased awareness of the climate and bio-diversity crisis (Ogunbode et al. 2022; Pihkala 2020) with concern increasingly centered on how this is affecting children and young people (Hickman 2019, 2020; Hoggett 2019; Lawton 2019; Parker 2023).

Recent IPCC reports (2022) and research have highlighted the mental health impact and relational aspect of this distress with children and young people suffering severe emotional and mental upset because of climate change, knowing about it, witnessing, directly experiencing its impact, and fearing for their increasingly uncertain futures (UNICEF 2021). They are suffering from prolonged psychological and physical stress. Relationally they have symptoms of depression, grief, and anxiety, feeling betrayed, abandoned, and dismissed by the people in power and governments who they expected to protect them (Hickman et al. 2021; UNICEF 2021). Research has examined the impact of direct exposure to traumatic events (wildfires, floods, or extreme heat) as well as indirect adverse experiences observed by witnessing the harm being caused to others, such as news reports showing animals and people fleeing wildfires or listening to stories told by survivors of traumatic events (Lawrance et al. 2021; Obradovich et al. 2018).

In 2022 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report first addressed the mental health impact of climate change whereas prior to this, the emphasis was on physical health impacts. The recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder, trauma, depression, and anxiety validated what many have understood and felt for some time: that the effect of the climate and biodiversity crises on mental health is significant, and widespread, and affecting children the most. At the report’s launch, António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations responded with “Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership… delay means death … I know people everywhere are anxious and angry; I am, too … every voice can make a difference … now is the time to turn rage into action” (Guterres 2022).

I have been working with children and young people in clinical psychotherapy practice alongside international research developing an understanding of eco-anxiety for more than ten years. This paper will present some key findings and clinical approaches developed from this work. However, given that I am confident in arguing that eco-anxiety is an emergent mental health crisis, I would also offer the caveat that despite immersing myself in the study of this for ten years, I am only starting to understand it, because it changes continuously; it is linked to changing environmental, social, and cultural factors, and it cannot be wholly predicted. We are in the most changeable of changeable times, and we need to be fluid and flexible, and have humility and curiosity to keep learning about what it means to be fully alive and awake in the world today.

Two important frames for this paper

Before examining the nature of eco-anxiety in more detail there are a couple of points I want to note as important frames for the following discussion. Firstly, we need to walk a careful line when thinking about eco-anxiety in relation to children and young people, so we do not individualize and therefore pathologise what is in effect an emotionally mentally healthy response to environmental problems in the world with a social and relational root system (Marks and Hickman 2023). This constitutes a clinical dilemma in practice because the climate emergency is not going to recede or be fixed in the near future. It follows, therefore, that eco-anxiety will also continue to increase in response, and any attempt to fix it or remove it in children and young people risks invalidating their fears rather than supporting them. We do of course also need to respond to the distress that is being felt and support children and young people to navigate their distress whilst validating their emotionally healthy and congruent response. Meaning can be found in the dilemma and therapeutic responses.

The second point to note is how I have noticed requests for support from young people with eco-anxiety have started to change in practice. This is something I started to see increasingly around the time of COP27 in Glasgow in 2021 but have been hearing more consistently in recent months. Young people initially were asking for help with their eco-anxiety, but now they often start to question how to live in a world that evidently does not care about the future of children and young people. Their anxiety can move from anxiety about climate change to anxiety about the people in charge or in powerful positions in the world. They ask, “Am I crazy to feel this way?” Within a few days last week (July 2023) Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, stated that we have entered the world of global boiling not global warming. Then the current Prime Minister of the UK stated that he is on the side of car drivers rather than clean air projects in cities that are needed to give children a healthy environment and announced that he is going to “max out” oil and gas reserves in the North Sea against all the advice from his own scientific advisors. It is little wonder that children are left confused about who to trust, wondering how to process and make sense of these contradictory arguments where there seems to be no priority given to their needs for a safe future. Increasingly throughout this year I hear climate aware children and young people say things like “Tell me how to stay alive and sane in a world that clearly just doesn’t care about us having a future” and “Well, if he is for motorists then he may as well say he is against children breathing clean air,” and “I feel like I’m just going mad now, there is no way that I can feel ok about this, all the therapy in the world is not going to make me feel ok about feeling so hated by the people running this country.” More and more I have seen children and young people who are knowledgeable and aware of the climate crisis fall into increasingly unresolvable despair as they perceive that their futures are being abandoned and betrayed. The increase of this expression of anguish has been marked. And it’s hard to know how to respond to this because these are irreconcilable positions.

I feel it is important to note these points, because whilst we do need to develop a therapeutic approach to supporting individuals and groups of children and young people with their despair, this needs to be done in a context that includes recognition of a contemporary social, political, cultural, and planetary lens through which we need to look, in order to fully understand how this feels, and not individualize what is a collective hurt.

Eco-anxiety in children and young people

Research tells us about the impact of the climate and biodiversity crises on children and young people worldwide as it examines how these crises affect children emotionally, cognitively, in their daily lives, and their trust and faith in government action (Hickman et al. 2021). This research told us that 67% said climate change makes me feel sad and afraid, while 62% felt anxious. Whilst we might be able to reassure ourselves that children in Europe are currently somewhat protected from the impact on daily living with only 26% in the UK, 31% in Finland, 35% in France identifying that it impacts on going to school, spending time with friends or in nature and studying, as opposed to the children in the Philippines and India (74%), not that we are reassured by this global injustice. But it is when we look at the figures showing cognitive impact that we can see how children globally may have more in common with each other than difference. It is when we look at how they see their futures, how they navigate the world today, what hope they have for the future that we see how powerfully children are being affected even in countries that are not facing the worst impact of climate change, yet. 75% worldwide and 73% UK think the future is frightening, and over half think that humanity is doomed − 56% worldwide and 51% UK.

It is therefore crucial when thinking about climate distress with children and young people that we take a global or planetary perspective, encompassing and respecting cultural differences and sensitivity as well as thinking about the immediacy or distance to the threats being faced. It is in the similarities that we see a powerful message about how this is affecting all children and young people, and for me this means that an intergenerational frame or child-centered climate crisis lens is essential if we are to understand what this can mean for all children.

Whilst research has largely framed eco-anxiety as an emotionally healthy and congruent response to environmental crises there remain contrasting and competing theories surrounding its nature and treatment, with eco-anxiety variously framed as pretraumatic or posttraumatic stress, collective trauma, intergenerational trauma, and Adverse Childhood Experiences. Whilst there is a general recognition from professional bodies that eco-anxiety should not be diagnosed or pathologised (RCPsych 2021) there are also attempts to categorize and differentiate between “normal” and “abnormal” forms of eco-distress. To be certain, what could be argued is that eco-anxiety is an emergent mental health problem that we are learning about amid the unfolding climate and bio-diversity crisis itself.

Counseling and psychotherapy have been increasingly addressing these issues with development of “climate aware therapy” models in clinical practice (Davenport 2017) and through groups such as the Climate Psychology Alliance. Climate-aware therapeutic models would argue that rather than diagnosing and pathologising eco-anxiety we should be supporting people in making sense of their distress, finding meaning in their changing world, developing community and collective approaches for support, challenging climate denial, and embracing the range of emotions found through this including grief, despair, depression, radical hope, and empathy. A depth psychology approach (Hoggett 2019; Hollis 1996; Lertzman 2015; Hoggett 2019; Randall 2019; Weintrobe 2013) would argue that it is this very descent – depression, experience of grief and loss – that gives meaning to the experience of waking up to the climate crisis.

Looking under the surface requires us to be curious, to use deep listening (Hoggett 2019), show respect to all forms of emotional expression (Hickman 2020; Pihkala 2020; Weintrobe 2021), show humility to feelings (Hollis 1996) and develop climate-aware psychological models that can help us to navigate these unprecedented challenges, both internal and external in the world today.

Based on clinical case studies and research, climate anxiety can be defined and categorized on a scale ranging from mild to critical. Whilst much of this is generalized from clinical practice and can be applied to any age group, I have also included a specific note to each category reflecting the way in which I see each category apply to children and young people specifically. I first published this scale in 2020 and immediately started to see it as inadequate or incomplete because it ended with the category of Significant. I realized that a further category of Critical was needed as I started to see more suicidal and self-harming behavior appear in practice in relation to climate distress. The scale represented here includes my developed clinical understanding from the last three years.

Eco-anxiety scale

Mild

Impact on daily functioning

Some feelings of upset, weekly or less often, sometimes after watching news of climate problems in the world. Little interest in reading news articles about climate change or watching documentaries or engaging in deeper discussions. Often will only discuss climate change in a limited way and, whilst interested, will not want to dwell on the problems too much “let’s not spoil the party or be negative.”

Can still spend time in nature without any focus on the losses or impact of climate change on nature.

Can think that flying is not ideal but may be unwilling to face the disruption of avoiding flying or making significant changes to lifestyle. Largely hold others responsible for “fixing” the problems.

Thoughts

Strong beliefs that other people (such as scientists, business, and governments) hold answers to the climate emergency – the belief which provides reassurance and relief from distress, “It’s in their hands.” Generally, thinks it is just warming (temperature rise, ice melting, and flooding), doesn’t see the broader systemic nature of climate change, and looks for evidence that things are not that bad. Strong attachment to “positive” news. Little disruption in cognition/thinking.

Feelings

Feelings of distress include initial anxiety and some upset, but not developing into panic or stronger dysregulated feelings. The feelings are not overwhelming and recede quickly. Feelings of distress can be transient and respond to reassurance from others who do not have to hold authoritative positions such as scientists or politicians. Feelings of anxiety can be reduced by a focus on relatively small individual and local actions such as food choices (eating less meat, reducing dairy consumption) and recycling. There is a focus on optimism and hopeful solutions and avoiding painful feelings such as depression or despair. Can show evidence of reacting strongly to other’s fears, upset briefly but then making jokes, silencing the anxious person, or changing the subject quickly. Psychological equilibrium is achieved by dismissing the fears and avoiding evidence. Can become cross and irritated if someone persists in talking about their climate anxiety leading to pejorative dismissal, such as “don’t be such a tree hugger.”

Defenses

Defenses of disavowal are often present and can border on denial (such as minimizing the scientific evidence and feelings of anxiety and emergency). Strong evidence of managing fears through reassurance by others (leading to strong rationalizations such as: It will all be ok, humans have faced crises before and survived, “we survived a world war, we can survive this”). These defenses could be considered to be naive. Fears may be largely unconscious.

Children and young people

When experiencing mild eco-anxiety children and young people will depend fully on the adults around them such as parents, carers, and teachers to guide them in how to regulate their emotional responses. They will very much take their lead from authority figures and be reassured that there will be solutions to these crises that they do not need to be worried about. Their trust will be largely intact.

Medium

Impact on daily functioning

Slightly increased impact with a willingness to make some changes in lifestyle. More recognition of personal responsibility to make some changes but with some bargaining “I’ll do this if everyone else does the same.” The beginnings of doubt in “others’” solutions to the emergency but still retains fundamental beliefs that technological solutions will be found before it gets too bad. Making some lifestyle changes such as reduction in flying/meat eating/dairy consumption, but still choosing to mostly maintain life as before with minimum significant changes. Can be reassured by discussion with others. Some limited knowledge about facts and figures, but not obsessed or preoccupied. Happy to “leave the science to the scientists.” Likely to be flexitarian or vegetarian.

Thoughts

Some disruption in cognition/thinking, but not preoccupied by the emergency.

Feelings

Stronger feelings of anxiety, sadness, some guilt, and shame more likely to appear, particularly in relation to own family. Feeling upset more frequently (weekly).

Defenses

Psychological defenses are less efficient in minimizing distress. For example, some intrusive thoughts may break through defenses, especially after watching news or listening to mixed messages about solutions to climate change. Rationalized beliefs can still be strong, such as “If things were that bad then authority figures would take action as an urgent matter – wouldn’t they?” Can be defensive if challenged, such as redirect challenge to displace anxiety “Well what about China? We are doing enough here” or “The cost-of-living crisis has to be taken seriously, we need to be reasonable and pragmatic.” Splitting the economy from taking action on climate change. More conscious awareness that this is a complex problem, but defenses largely intact.

Children and young people

In this category children and young people will still largely have trust in adult figures in their lives but will likely have started to initiate more conversations at home, to challenge their families’ narratives about the crisis, to question if they are doing enough. They are likely to be seeking out information for themselves online or from the news and become increasingly aware that their parents or carers may not have all the answers.

Significant

Impact on daily functioning

Daily upset and feelings of distress – minimal defenses against guilt, grief, and fear. Some fears of social collapse can be seen alongside fears about climate change. Often, they have made many practical changes in their world such as making conscious choice to be vegetarian or vegan. Increasingly little faith in “others” finding or acting on solutions. Willing to end relationships with people who are in denial about the climate emergency including friends at school or within the family. Partnerships and marriages can be threatened, especially if one partner is in denial or minimizes the emergency. Conflicts about the practical action needed to tackle it are seen in families and close relationships. Significant impact on lifestyle. Tendency to try to reduce own carbon footprint and then feel it is never enough, leading to further and further reductions, none of which lead to satisfaction “I can never feel as if I can do enough.” Often turns to nature-based work/leisure for emotional support such as joining wildlife trusts, rewilding projects, growing vegetables. Often start to imagine different futures such as moving to rural location, joining an eco-community, running an insect farm. Support school strikes, marches, or other forms of direct action, with some willingness to break the law/be arrested, or if not personally willing, wants to support others in doing so.

Thoughts

Increase in signs of cognitive/thinking changes such as guilt and shame in relation to children and grandchildren (their own and/or others), their futures being damaged, and anxiety about children’s futures. Hesitancy to have children of their own in the future because of climate change. Much stronger feelings that they should “do something.” Some intrusive thoughts and dreams, but infrequent in comparison with more severe category. Some breakdown in ability to trust information and others.

Feelings

Anxiety is much harder to mitigate by reassurance, for example reassurance will have to be repeated frequently and trusted authority figures will be sought out. But this is a very changeable category when people can really struggle with who to trust and believe. Frequently feel insecure and anxious, but group actions can reduce anxiety to a more manageable level. Much more anger with feelings of being let down by powerful others. In children and young people some significant anger about the choices made in the past by adults destroying children’s futures.

Defenses

Defences against distress are much more fragile. Intolerant of climate deniers. Still holds some beliefs in government and democratic political solutions, but with some increasingly cynical and doubting views.

Children and young people

Upset that can seriously interfere with their daily lives including fear about human extinction. Struggle with believing the messages of reassurance from adults vs their own research and knowledge gained often from external sources. Much more willing to challenge the values and beliefs of their family and school.

Severe

Impact on daily functioning

Sleep affected and preoccupation with the climate emergency leading to a struggle to enjoy any aspect of life because of fears for the future. May affect daily functioning – be unable to go to school or to work some days. Can be driven by a need to gain knowledge of climate change facts and figures and spend hours reading information online.

Thoughts

Severe cognitive/thinking changes such as intrusive thoughts. People can manage daily life by compartmentalizing their feelings and thoughts, but they return frequently and can be intrusive (force their way into consciousness even when the person really doesn’t want them to do so for example during conversations, meetings, or in a class at school). Strongly held beliefs (certainty) that the climate emergency will lead to social collapse and social breakdown.

No belief or trust in “others” (authority figures/governments) to act sufficiently swiftly or decisively to take steps to adapt or mitigate against climate change – this is supported by evidence as they fail to act or fail to take what is believed to be sufficient action to protect people. Supported as well by considerable knowledge about the crisis (climate, political awareness, literature, scientific).

Knowledge of the climate crisis as a systemic global injustice with a preoccupation with “fairness” and “unfairnesses” and injustice. Extensive awareness of the impact of climate change both nationally and internationally. Thoughts about being unable to have children of their own either now or in the future as the world will be inhospitable or uninhabitable.

Feelings

Anticipation of extinction of human species leading to terror rather than anxiety.

Can be felt as though people who don’t understand or empathize, or care are being abusive and cruel. Can be intergenerational tensions such as children who are angry with their parents’ generation for failing to act on climate change.

Unable to manage or contain strong emotional responses all the time – these will come and go – (such as crying a lot, impulsive anger at people who don’t seem to care about the climate crisis).

Feelings of guilt and shame and heightened distress when thinking about their own potential future children, or the impact on their current younger siblings having to grow up in such a dangerous world. Sometimes there is less personal concern, and the anxiety is directed toward more global anxiety, empathy, guilt, and shame.

Defenses

No defenses against the terror felt, or the defenses are easily overwhelmed.

Dreams about climate change occur. Some fleeting thoughts about suicide as a future option if things get worse, but no immediate plans to act.

Children and young people

Can see considerable anger and feelings of disbelief, betrayal, and abandonment in relation to parental figures which will include psychotherapists if they try to offer reassurance about climate change or tell the child not to worry so much. This can lead to the child avoiding discussion with the parent or therapist. They can hide their distress and only present what they consider to be allowable or rational fears. The child will maintain the close relationship with the parent or therapist at the expense of their feelings.

Critical

Impact on daily functioning

Daily functioning can be affected significantly. People can have an obsessive need to get information about climate change such as checking the IPCC report repeatedly (may be seen behaviorally occurring every hour) or checking weather reports repeatedly throughout the evening in anticipation of the following days weather looking for evidence of worsening climate figures related to heat, rainfall, air quality, temperature. Intrusive thoughts about human survival – such as looking at a group of people on a train or in classroom at school and wondering which ones will survive and which will die first from heat or starvation in the group.

Thoughts

There may be thoughts of suicide in children and young people as well as adults. Some discussion about mass suicide as a reasonable and rational option, as the only way to get away from the endless fear and irreconcilable terror that is felt. Children can worry about having to kill their pets or set them free to fend for themselves and catch their own food to save them from death by starvation as food supplies run dry and they are no longer able to provide food for them.

Distress and crying at the thought of never being able to have children of their own in the future as they will be unable to protect their children from harm.

Feelings

Feelings of anxiety can frequently turn into panic. Extreme guilt and grief about the impact of climate change on all parts of the world “nowhere is safe” with very high levels of guilt felt toward populations more vulnerable to the emergency. There can be a powerful feeling of alienation from parents or carers if they do not understand or cannot tolerate the level of distress felt by the child at this point.

Defenses

Very few defenses in this stage against terror and overwhelm, both cognitively and emotionally. Real risk of suicide.

Children and young people

In this most critical category children and young people may feel extreme alienation from peer groups and family as they can be left feeling that no one understands their distress. Can be faced with fears that they are going mad, or everyone else in the world is going mad. Extreme insecurity and distrust. No tolerance of rationalized defenses, these are seen as further abandonment. Compounded distress on multiple levels. Suicide or extreme climate activism is one of the only regulating emotional states available.

Dreams

Sally Weintrobe said that “we need a dream and a nightmare to understand what is wrong and to imagine a better world” (Weintrobe 2021, 5). Children are increasingly relating dreams or nightmares that suggest they are fearful unconsciously and unable to find respite from reasonable rational reassurances. Children are telling me about dreams or nightmares of having to kill pets, younger children, or elderly parents as food sources run out and social breakdown threatens social order, or of being killed themselves by parents or older siblings. Dreams that their parents have collected drugs so the family could commit suicide together. Dreams about fuel shortages leading to them being unable to travel to get to loved ones such as parents, partners, family, or to safety more generally, for example breaking down in unknown places and being threatened by strangers who live there. Dreams or nightmares of this nature about climate change are very stressful as they frequently cause the child or young person to wake up full of fear and there will be a period of time when this is believed and felt to be real before they are fully awake and realize it was a dream and can start to feel calmer. The loss of sleep and dysregulation from nightmares is particularly damaging as the child is unconscious when asleep and so is unable to have any control over these experiences. Children and young people tell me that this feels like torture, there is no respite from fearful emotion and distressing thoughts, even when asleep.

Moral injury

Given the arguments above about the relational nature of the distress felt by children and young people regarding the climate crisis we need to have a way to understand and respond to their distress that offers containment without pathologizing. We need to understand it through their eyes. The very people who are supposed to be protecting children and young people are often the people who are causing their distress, often unwittingly. But worse, they are simultaneously telling children to trust them, that they have their best interests at heart, and that their fears are disproportionate. Weintrobe (2021) identifies this as a moral injury, a climate and ecological trauma (p241). A violation of “what’s right.”

In practice

Empathise, try to see things through children and young people’s eyes. Whilst this might seem obvious and everyday practice for therapists, the climate crisis means that we are facing our own anxieties about survival alongside those of our clients. This makes the therapeutic alliance absolutely crucial as a container for the fears of both the therapist and client.

Therapists are skilled in working in the liminal spaces between fantasy, dream, imaginal, and reality. The climate crisis requires us to tolerate multiple uncertainties over a period of time. We need support to absorb and assimilate our own fears alongside those of our clients.

Facing the realities of the climate crisis requires us to acknowledge feelings of grief and loss at what is already lost as well as hold the hope that much can be done to mitigate or adapt to these crises. It requires us to adopt a both/and approach and be careful of splitting into an either/or stance.

I would argue that all adults need to say “sorry” to children and young people for the crises we are facing. And whilst not taking on disproportionate guilt and responsibility (we are not Exxon Mobil), all adults do have a culpability for the position we are in and have known about for many years.

We need to support children and young people in developing emotional biodiversity (all feelings are relevant here), emotional intelligence, internal as well as external sustainable activism.

We cannot remove or replace feelings of eco-anxiety from children and young people, as that would constitute a further betrayal. What we can do is to bear their feelings of frustration and despair, so at least they are not alone with these feelings, and that may reduce the sense of betrayal.

Finally, I am suggesting a psychoeducational approach, and reframing of eco-anxiety. Children and young people feel this often acutely as a measure of the care they feel for the world, themselves, and the animals and children around the world. Instead of feeling anxious about their eco-anxiety, they could feel proud that they care.

Hoggett (2019) beautifully summarized what it means to be alive in the world today when he reminds us that we are “witnessing” and “living with” a tragedy without precedent that is unfolding in front of our eyes. As therapists we are human beings experiencing the same climate breakdown as our clients. We are both witnessing and experiencing it, for ourselves and our families, and we need, alongside this, to stretch our hearts, minds, and imagination widely enough to understand it from children’s points of view, even when they do not fully fit with our own. To finally illustrate this there is an image below of Climate Anxiety drawn by a young person who has tried to show what she can hardly articulate – her fear, overwhelm and terror, how small and threatened and consumed it makes her feel, and how important and vital is that small light of understanding from others.

Caroline Hickman has a background in mental health social work and psychotherapy. She is trained in integrative psychosynthesis psychotherapy with Revision College and archetypal and cultural psychology with Thiasos College, qualifying from both in 2000. Currently a lecturer at the University of Bath researching children and young people’s emotional responses to the climate and biodiversity crisis internationally for ten years examining eco-anxiety and distress, eco-empathy, trauma, moral injury, impact of climate anxiety on relationships and developing psycho-educational models to work with eco-anxiety. She is co-lead author on a 2021 global study of 10,000 children and young people’s emotions and thoughts about climate change published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Caroline Hickman

Caroline Hickman, M.Sc is University of Bath.