Climate Anxiety, Maturational Loss, and Adversarial Growth

ABSTRACT

Climate anxiety is intimately connected with climate grief. This article applies interdisciplinary research and especially theories of grief and bereavement to climate anxiety. The aim is to provide important information regarding encounters between children and adults in relation to climate change and other environmental crises. This is useful for therapists, but also for many other adults who wish to react constructively. The article explores various kinds of loss and grief that people, especially children and youth, may experience in relation to climate change. It is pointed out that many intangible losses can be involved. These may be first difficult to notice, and there is often disenfranchised grief in relation to them. Climate change also produces nonfinite loss, which is challenging to live with. Literature of grief research can help in discerning these and in reacting constructively to them, but applications for the context of ecological grief have to be made. Furthermore, the article applies the framework of maturational loss into the context of climate change. While even normal developmental changes can evoke sadness, climate change can intensify this, because “climate maturity” brings many difficult things to live with. At the same time, there are possibilities of adversarial growth or post-traumatic growth because of climate anxiety, and also these need more attention. The article ends with discussion about the challenges and possibilities of encounters between adults and children amidst the complex dynamics of climate emotions. The adults have their own developmental tasks and potential maturational losses which need engagement with.

KEYWORDS:

• Eco-anxiety
• climate change anxiety
• ecological grief
• bereavement
• developmental tasks
• non-death loss
• posttraumatic growth
• adversarial growth
• maturational loss
• intangible loss
• Robert Jay Lifton

Introduction

Climate anxiety is increasingly impacting people of all ages, but it is especially prominent in many children and youth (e.g. Galway and Field 2023; Hickman et al. 2021; Ogunbode et al. 2022; Sangervo, Jylhä, and Pihkala 2022). Broadly speaking, climate anxiety is related to many kinds of distress and many difficult emotions which are significantly related to anthropogenic climate change (Clayton 2020; Hickman 2020; Pihkala 2020a). Underneath climate anxiety is a dimension of being able to notice threats which are diffuse and include some uncertainty, and this kind of constructive worry or “practical anxiety” has been explored in relation to ecological issues (for an overview, see (Ojala et al. 2021); for practical anxiety, see (Kurth and Pihkala 2022)). Climate anxiety as a concept has been partly politicized and it is possible to use various kinds of terminology (Wardell 2020), but what is essential is to realize the extent and depth of climate change-related distress.

Climate anxiety provides many challenges for therapists and other psychological professionals (e.g. Lewis, Haase, and Trope 2020; Silva and Coburn 2022). It is difficult for any human being to encounter the severity of current and predicted environmental damage (e.g. Dodds 2011; Weintrobe 2013, 2021). Children’s fears, anxieties and sad feelings are painful to encounter for adults, and at the same time the adults need to wrestle with their own emotional reactions and mental states (Hickman 2019, 2020). However, this situation also means that adults have profound possibilities to support children and youth, if they find ways to engage with difficult emotions together. Furthermore, supporting children may at the same time also support the caring adults. Overall, what is needed is growing together in community.

In this article, I am focusing on certain aspects of the lived experience of climate change and other ecological problems, and the ways in which these aspects affect encounters between children and adults. Therapeutic encounters are a major part of this, but many dynamics which I discuss are relevant also for any climate conversations. I am especially focusing on feelings of loss and sadness, which can be here captured with the overarching terms climate grief and ecological grief (Cunsolo and Ellis 2018; Pihkala 2020b). With the help of research in grief and bereavement studies, I explore various forms of climate-related loss and grief that especially children and young people may feel. I argue that these feelings are intimately connected with climate anxiety and that they can affect child-adult encounters in profound ways.

I also explore how the dynamics of growing up in the midst of the climate crisis can be intertwined with climate grief. To my knowledge, this article includes the first application of the framework of maturational loss (Walter and McCoyd 2016) into climate grief and lifespan development amidst climate change. The concept and framework of maturational loss draws attention to the fact that people often experience both positive and negative emotions when they grow up and mature. I point out that the climate crisis brings new severity to these kind of feelings of loss: Growing up amidst climate change can evoke many intangible losses, especially if and when the adult world does not care enough about climate change. I argue that the framework of disenfranchised grief can help to understand some aspects of this, and I briefly discuss a historical comparison with the existential threat produced by the looming possibility of nuclear war amidst the Cold War as described by psychologist Robert Jay Lifton.

In the final section of the article, I discuss the challenges and possibilities inherent in child-adult encounters amidst climate emotions. There are also possibilities for adversarial growth or posttraumatic growth arising out of climate anxiety, in addition to the profound distress. Adults’ developmental tasks also need attention, and parents and grandparents are examples of groups which need further social support. This also helps to provide better support for children. Sometimes children can be agents of this support, but care must be taken so that they do not end up as carriers of others’ issues.

A caveat must be mentioned. Climate anxiety and grief are constantly evolving phenomena with a plurality of possible manifestations and dynamics, which makes research about them both extremely important and very challenging. Everything is changing rapidly and new research emerges constantly. I am drawing in this article from many years of focused study of the topic area (e.g. Pihkala 2017, 2018, 2020a, 2020c, 2020d, 2022a, 2022b) but the reader should acknowledge that more research is needed on the nuances of the topics covered here. (Some of my earlier studies about children and eco-anxiety are in Finnish and I try to explain in English the main results of those that I cite here [Pihkala, Sangervo, and Jylhä 2022].)

Earlier research is relatively scarce both about children’s varieties of climate grief and about developmental dynamics amidst climate change. There are some important in-depth interview studies of children’s climate emotions (esp. Hickman 2019, 2020, 2023), useful studies about adults’ observations of children’s climate emotions (e.g. Baker, Clayton, and Bragg 2021; Verlie et al. 2020), and general observations about the impacts of climate change on children’s development (Burke, Sanson, and Van Hoorn 2018; Vergunst and Berry 2021). In the vast literature on environmental education, there are many observations of children’s climate emotions (for an overview, see Pihkala 2020d), but much less in-depth explorations of grief dynamics or developmental tasks. Many studies in environmental education and environmental psychology do provide empirical data which can be analyzed in relation to theories of grief and loss. Education and psychology researcher Ojala has studied the general topic of eco-emotions for a long time (e.g. Ojala 2007, 2016), and she has briefly discussed the impacts of these studies for developmental psychology (Ojala 2023). Many psychoanalytic and psychosocial scholars have made important contributions for understanding related dynamics especially among adults (e.g. Gillespie 2020; Hoggett 2019; Lertzman 2015; Randall 2009), and the results of these inquiries are here applied in many ways to the topic at hand.

The results of this article can be helpful for both therapists and any adults who wish to explore deeper the emotions and dynamics related to climate anxiety. I am mentioning several psychodynamic concepts in the article, but the results also provide many opportunities for further in-depth explorations of related themes by various professionals. (I am not a psychotherapist myself, even though I have some therapeutic training and experience, and I partly draw from discussion groups and workshops about eco-anxiety which I have co-facilitated with various psychological professionals.) I will start by exploring various forms of climate-related loss and grief, and then proceed to discussing the dynamics of growing up amidst the climate crisis.

Various forms of climate-related loss and grief

Tangible and intangible losses

What do contemporary children and youth feel to be lost in relation to climate change? There is an increasing number of studies which touch on aspects of this question (e.g. Coppola and Pihkala 2023; Diffey et al. 2022; Hickman et al. 2021), but more attention would be needed to the plurality, depth, and complexity of these losses, and psychodynamic thinking can be one important tool for such exploration (e.g. Hickman 2020; Lertzman 2015; Nicholsen 2002; Randall 2009). Relevant research frameworks include ecological grief, eco-anxiety/climate anxiety, climate distress, and solastalgia (for overviews, see Pihkala 2020a, 2022a), but many more could be named. Practically, any good studies on the lived experience of climate change can add to our understanding of related issues, but studies on the seldom-named and easily concealed aspects are very much needed.

The conceptualization of tangible and intangible loss in grief research (Harris 2020b) offers helpful tools for investigating people’s climate losses. Tangible losses are those which can be rather easily noticed, at least to members of a same culture. These are often the visible aspects of losses, or otherwise noticeable with human senses. Intangible losses are those which can be totally invisible for other people, or at least not easy to first notice. These may be things that others do not know that have existed, or they may be aspects related to tangible losses which others do not realize.

An example of tangible climate change-related loss is the receding glacier nearby one’s place of residence. However, with the glacier, many other things may be felt to be lost at the same time, and these intangible aspects may be different for various people. There may be cultural, psychological, and symbolic significance which is tied with the glacier. The loss of the glacier may generate intangible loss of income, for example via loss of hunting opportunities or tourism opportunities. And furthermore, the loss of the glacier may resonate with more global losses and anxieties: A receding local glacier may be an important focal point of climate anxiety and worry related to the whole global climate (for glaciers, climate change and different significances, see Brugger et al. [2013]; for resonance of local and global, see Pihkala [2022a]).

Table 1 shows numerous kinds of intangible climate change-related losses which scholars Tschakert and colleagues (Tschakert et al. 2019) have charted from studies around the world.

Table 1. Subjects of climate-related loss and grief (Tschakert et al. 2019).

Culture, Lifestyle, Traditions, and Heritage
Physical health
Mental and Emotional Well-being
Human Mobility
Indirect Economic Benefits and Opportunities
Sense of Place
Social Fabric
Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity and Species
Productive Land and Habitat
Knowledge and Ways of Knowing
Human Life[span]
Identity
Self-determination and Influence
Order in the World
Dignity
Territory
Ability to Solve Problems Collectively
Sovereignty

A key point is that children and young people in various parts of the world may feel numerous kinds of both tangible and intangible losses in relation to climate change, and that these aspects may be combined in profound ways (see also Goldman 2022, 27–31). Adults, including therapists, must pay attention to these and especially for the possible intangible losses. The intangible aspects may be very serious: Their range includes the felt loss of whole futures, lifepaths, and dreams, as will be discussed more below.

Nonfinite loss and ambiguous loss

The climate losses that children and young people feel may be further complicated and made more intense by the nonfinite and sometimes ambiguous character of the losses. Again, concepts and frameworks from grief research may provide help.

Nonfinite loss as a concept and research framework has been applied, for example, to people experiencing life-changing disabilities in either themselves or others (Harris 2020a; Schultz and Harris 2011). These are losses which continue to evoke feelings of sadness: they remain present, even though a stronger process of grief may be experienced and processed at the time when the loss is generated or faced. Many characteristics of nonfinite loss are easily discernible in studies of ecological emotions, even while as a concept and framework nonfinite loss has not yet been much used there (see, however, Kevorkian 2020; Pihkala forthcoming). Table 2 shows some of these characteristics.

Table 2. Cardinal features of nonfinite loss according to (Harris 2020a; Schultz and Harris 2011).

“There is an ongoing uncertainty regarding what will happen next. Anxiety is often the primary undercurrent to the experience.”

“There is often a sense of disconnection from the mainstream and what is generally viewed as ‘normal’ in human experience.”

“The magnitude of the loss is frequently unrecognized or not acknowledged by others.”

“There is an ongoing sense of helplessness and powerlessness associated with the loss.”

“Nonfinite losses may be accompanied by shame, embarrassment, and self-doubting that further complicate existing relationships, thereby adding to the struggle with coping.”

“There are typically no rituals that assist to validate or legitimize the loss, especially if the loss was symbolic or intangible.”

“chronic despair and ongoing dread”

Nonfinite loss can have close relations to ambiguous loss, a term developed by grief scholar Pauline Boss (for an overview, see Boss [2020]). Ambiguous loss is characterized by simultaneous absence and presence, leading to unclarity and uncertainty. A classic example is a soldier missing in action. Boss notes that there can also be physical presence but psychological, ambiguous absence, such as in cases of dementia: Is the personality still there or not?

It is more difficult to grieve if one cannot be certain about the loss or if the loss fluctuates, and this has been observed to happen in relation to some ecological losses (Cunsolo and Ellis 2018). Since many losses are expected to happen in the future, the role of anticipation also becomes often intertwined with the threats and losses. Many things are already partly lost because of climate crisis; because there are processes of change happening all the time, people may find it difficult to estimate whether some things are already going to be totally lost or whether they may still be partly saved. This connects ecological grief with discourses about anticipatory grief and mourning (for anticipatory grief in general, see e.g. Worden 2018, 204–8; for anticipatory climate grief and “pre-traumatic stress,” see e.g. Babbott 2023).

As regards types of grief, nonfinite loss often generates what is called “chronic sorrow” (Harris 2020a; Ross 2020), a non-pathological grief which is different from what is commonly called chronic grief. Chronic sorrow is characterized by both persistence and fluctuations of intensity, among other attributes, and its descriptions have much in common with aspects of climate grief.

Disenfranchised grief

Disenfranchised grief is a term developed by grief researcher Kenneth Doka, referring to griefs which are not allowed to gain space (for an overview, see Doka 2020). There may be various reasons for this kind of social behavior, but it is fundamentally related to some kind of difficulty in accepting the grief in question, and includes power dynamics. Sometimes the loss is not acknowledged as valid, and sometimes the griever is excluded from the status of those allowed to mourn. Disenfranchising may be either silently operating or more maliciously, a result of straight use of power (Attig 2004).

Grief researchers have observed that certain types of loss and grief often generate disenfranchised grief. These prominently include many those attributes which are often found in relation to ecological grief: intangible loss, nonfinite loss, ambiguous loss, anticipatory grief, and chronic sorrow (Harris 2020a). Others may not notice the losses or they may devalue the losses because they are not in touch with them themselves. Disenfranchised grief has been observed in relation to ecological grief (Cunsolo and Ellis 2018), but its nuanced dynamics deserve more attention. It is closely related to what has been discussed in relation to ecological grief with the help of philosopher Judith Butler’s term “grievability” (Barnett 2022; Cunsolo Willox and Landman 2017).

Grief researchers discuss the possibility that people may self-disenfranchise their grief (Doka 2020), and there are examples of this in relation to ecological grief (Nicholsen 2002). In disenfranchised grief of any kind, it is important to note that it may be the intangible aspects which are disenfranchised, even if tangible aspects are recognized.

Results for climate encounters

The aforementioned aspects of loss and grief produce significant impacts for climate change experiences of people of various age. Both children and adults have to wrestle with difficult cognitive evaluations of types of loss, often amidst significant emotional disturbance. Questions which may be asked include: What aspects of this loss are total and what are ambiguous? For example: Will the summers always be this hot and dry in the future, too? In other words, is this loss nonfinite and if so, how can we deal with it? Grieving has in general been found to be very difficult for contemporary people (e.g. Horwitz and Wakefield [2007]; Levine [2017]) and climate grief operates on a scale which brings more difficulty, due to its existential impact (Budziszewska and Jonsson 2021; Passmore, Lutz, and Howell 2022; Rehling 2022). The potential complex dynamics of grief and loss, which were discussed in the previous section, bring further difficulty.

Children and youth often report that they feel that adults do not understand or validate their climate-related losses, including significant intangible losses (e.g. Diffey et al. 2022; C. A.; Jones and Davison 2021). From a psychodynamic perspective, it can be seen that these losses are often so severe and threatening that they easily generate defenses in adults, including therapists (Haseley 2019; Kassouf 2017; Silva and Coburn 2022). Bringing the various aspects of loss into daylight, with the help of concepts and frameworks from grief theory, is one important effort in developing more resources to encounter them (similarly Hickman 2023).

It is important to notice that people may not themselves recognize (a) ecological grief in general or (b) particular aspects of it, including intangible aspects (e.g. Barnett 2022; Weintrobe 2021, 161–67, 237). In addition, they may or may not recognize how strongly disenfranchised grief affects them (see e.g. Kretz 2017). Safe exploration of various aspects of loss and related experiences is a major service that an adult, including a therapist, can provide for the child—or for another human being of any age, but there is a significant community responsibility to help children in this regard. More compassion and safe spaces would be needed for this engagement, which shows for example in the growing popularity of climate-related death cafes (see Weber 2020; Climate Psychology Alliance 2022 [https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/index.php/component/content/article/climate-cafes?catid=13&Itemid=101]).

The negative impacts of an inability to mourn are a classic theme in psychodynamic thinking (Mitscherlich and Mitscherlich 1984), and this has been discussed also in relation to ecological losses (Jones, Rigby, and Williams 2020; see also Nicholsen 2002; Lertzman 2015). The ability to grieve collectively various climate losses may have a very important political aspect, too.

Growing up amidst climate change

Maturational loss

Growing up has always included the potential for both enthusiasm and loss. In societies driven by an ideology of progress, grieving can be generally disvalued, and the loss aspects of maturation may be disenfranchised. Grief scholars Walter and McCoyd are among those who have drawn attention to the ambiguity of growing up and the potential simultaneous existence of loss and gain. They describe their framework of maturational loss:

Normal maturational changes are recognized not only as growth, but also as a special form of loss in which one is expected to delight in the growth and ignore the loss aspect of the change, a perspective we challenge. (Walter and McCoyd 2016, 1)

Climate change brings an additional aspect to maturational loss. For numerous people, growing up now causes more losses than before, because they have to deal with the intangible losses generated by the climate crisis. By accepting climate reality, there may result for example a felt loss of carefree youth, along with many other difficult intangible losses such as loss of earlier dreams and plans about the future. There may result also tangible losses, such as conflicted relationships and/or an inability to fully enjoy many carbon-intensive activities, thus resulting in an omission of some of them (e.g. ability to enjoy travel, for those who could afford it). “Climate change maturity” comes with a price, even when such maturity is desperately needed for the sake of Earth’s ecosystems and human wellbeing.

When is climate change maturity reached, and what is the role of age in its attainment? Experienced climate psychotherapist Sally Gillespie (2022) discusses group methods and “maturing conversations” in relation to climate change, pointing out that many adults are in need of more maturity in this regard. There are always differences between children and youth, but many of them currently reach climate change maturity at a rather early age, even while many of the adults close to them have not yet managed to encounter climate reality and engaged in such maturing (e.g. Hickman 2020, 2023). This brings additional stress for the children and youth, both because of the weight of this knowledge and the complex social dynamics encountered with less enlightened adults. Hickman argues that it is exactly the inability of the adult world to engage constructively with climate change which produces such heavy psychological impact in children, and she finds similar dynamics in child abuse and moral injury.

Even in normal circumstances, children and youth may experience much longing toward their earlier conditions, and for people of any age, there is always a psychological need to grieve for the ending of bygone life eras (Walter and McCoyd 2016). One can only imagine how much the climate crisis can strengthen and complicate this kind of longing and sadness, especially in societies where both normal maturational loss and climate grief are predominantly disenfranchised. Maturational loss can thus feature in many ways in parent–child relations.

Historical precedent? The nuclear threat

Some insight to the difficult situation around climate anxiety and grief may be gained by taking a deep look at another global-scale worry, the threat of nuclear war. One of the ardent researchers of nuclear psychology has been Robert Jay Lifton, who is still active. Lifton, a famous psychologist and writer since the latter half of the 20th century (for an overview, see Lifton 2019), integrates insights from many different psychological traditions, including psychoanalytic ones. He considered the impacts of the nuclear war threat to children and families in the 1980s, and these dynamics merit attention also in relation to the climate crisis.

Undermined now is the fundamental parental responsibility, that of “family security.” In the face of the threat of nuclear extinction, parents must now doubt their ability to see their child safely into some form of functional adulthood. And the child must also sense, early on, not only those parental doubts but the general inability of the adult world to guarantee the safety of children. In fact, there is growing evidence of significant impairment to the overall parent-child bond, to the delicate balance between protection and love on the one hand and the inner acceptance of authority on the other. With nuclear subversion of that authority, the always-present ambivalence on both sides can be expected to intensify, perhaps subverting feelings of love. (Lifton 1982, emphasis added)

Lifton has later applied his thinking also explicitly to climate change (Lifton 2017), focusing on the threats that these kind of crises can produce to people’s conceptions of their future and their meaning in life. Lifton wrote already in the 1980s about the threat of “radical futurelessness,” which is much present in the quote above.

Can Lifton’s ideas be applied also to the present context of climate change, and if so, to what extent? As phenomena, there are many similarities between the threat of nuclear war and threats posed by the ecological crisis, but of course a major difference is that the ecological crisis and the climate crisis are proceeding constantly. Much damage has already been done and is loaded into the system, which affects people both physically and psychologically.

Similarities in emotional dynamics between Lifton’s descriptions and the contemporary climate situation can be easily discerned. In the global research about climate emotions, where I also participated (Hickman et al. 2021), the feelings of unsafety among children became very clear, as well as their feelings of having been betrayed by the older generations of decision-makers. We discussed the possible moral injury that the situation has caused to children. Personally, I see much connection between our results and Lifton’s thoughts. Amidst the climate crisis, children sense, in Lifton’s words, “the general inability of the adult world to guarantee the safety of children” and it is possible that “the always-present ambivalence on both sides can be expected to intensify, perhaps subverting feelings of love” (Lifton 1982). This links with the arguments of Weintrobe (2021) about the “culture of uncare” in contemporary societies, and studies about intergenerational tensions in relation to climate issues (e.g. Roy and Ayalon 2022).

This suggests that having even a few trustworthy and climate-aware adults in the children’s lifeworld can significantly help intergenerational dynamics. It will not remove all the disappointment and feelings of unsafety, but it manifests that some adults care, working toward maintaining connections between generations. Psychologist Molly Young Brown tells of a child during the Cold War who was not worried about nuclear war when others were, and when the teacher asked why this was so, the child replied that her parents were participating in anti-nuclear activities (Brown 2016). Indeed, many scholars have pointed out that it would be very important to have people of all generations participating together in climate action, both for psychological and political reasons (e.g. Ayalon et al. 2022). In intergenerational encounters amidst various kinds of climate action, different generations can give embodied messages of a culture of care (Weintrobe 2021), or of “love” as Lifton puts it.

Lifton himself discusses the importance of “witnessing professionals”: In the case of nuclear threat, these were scientists, and in the case of climate change, these prominently include climate scientists (Lifton 2017, esp. Chapter 6). Psychological professionals can become important witnessing professionals, too; both in relation to climate change in general and also in relation to the existence, severity, and complicated character of climate anxiety. However, this requires still much effort in various schools and communities of psychology, including psychodynamic ones (e.g. Kassouf 2017; Orange 2017).

The challenge of growing together

Adversarial growth and survivor missions

For children and youth, growing up has always had the potential to include both felt gains and felt losses; think of sadly leaving the toys of childhood behind you, but at the same time enthusiastically greeting the new opportunities which come with age. Now in the climate crisis, children and youth often have to grow up very early, because the severity of the climate crisis shocks them into a more mature view of suffering in life. This does not happen to all of them, of course, and some manage to stay in denial and disavowal, or do not care. For example, in Finnish studies about young people and climate issues, roughly 5–6% of youth display anti-climate attitudes (Pihkala, Sangervo, and Jylhä 2022). But many children find themselves to be more mature than many adults in their approach to the reality of the climate crisis. This maturational change should be recognized as including a stronger-than-before loss aspect: growing up includes even more tragic aspects now than before. Since the loss aspects of even common maturational changes have not always been recognized before, this newly needed recognition may not be an easy task, especially given the social and political disputes around climate change.

However, as grief scholars Walter and McCoyd (2016) point out, recognizing and validating this loss aspect can lead to growth, especially with social support. It needs to be asked: What kind of positive aspects may the early maturation of children because of the climate crisis include? In other words, there is a need to be aware of both possible negative and positive aspects, without resorting to binary interpretations. That being said, it is evident that there is very much negative in the destruction around the climate crisis, and any brightsiding must be resisted.

The noted scholar of climate anxiety and children, Caroline Hickman, contributed a highly interesting thought when we discussed these dynamics during the preparation of this article (personal communication). She was reminded of the wide discussion around so-called young carers: young people who find themselves caring for other persons who have some kind of disabling condition. Young carers often have to mature very early, which can cause many kinds of losses. However, young carers also often experience many kinds of positive consequences because of their situation: for example, they may feel honor and become in many ways more resilient.

Perhaps, children and youth who have to mature early because of the climate crisis experience some similar things? While their “climate maturation” brings many losses, it can also bring many skills, new comrades, a feeling of doing honorable things, and an experience of being able to channel one’s caring and empathy into practice.

Broadly, an important research venture would be to study possible “adversarial growth” (Blackie et al. 2023) or posttraumatic growth (Tedeschi et al. 2018) among climate-aware young people. The framework of posttraumatic growth (PTG) has been applied to climate issues by some psychologists, most notably Doppelt (2016), but adversarial growth as a whole would require much more attention in relation to climate anxiety. In these studies, it is noted that major stressors or “seismic events” often cause both growth and negative impacts, which are called “post-traumatic depreciation” in that research (e.g. Taku et al. 2021).

PTG studies usually use five domains and these can be helpful in discerning various impacts of climate anxiety for people, including children: personal strength, relating to others, new possibilities, appreciation of life, and spiritual or existential change (Tedeschi et al. 2018). From literature about climate anxiety, it is easy to find examples of both PTG and post-traumatic depreciation in relation to all these five domains. Personal strengths may emerge or be invigorated, but people may also regress and suffer damage. For many children and young people, becoming climate-aware has brought new social relations and feelings of togetherness, but also social disruptions. Many have developed whole new life paths, some prominently in climate activism (e.g. Halstead), but also paths leading to depression and suicidality are a possibility (e.g. Halstead et al. 2021; Hoggett and Randall 2018; Nairn 2019). Realizing the fragility of existence may cause people to appreciate daily life more, including the natural world (e.g. Marczak et al. 2021; Zaremba et al. 2022), but this is by no means the only possible impact and nihilism is very possible (see discussion in Scranton 2015). This domain is closely linked with childhood, since the ability to wonder and appreciate daily occurrences in the natural world are skills which children can have in optimal circumstances. Youth and adults who feel so strong climate anxiety that they find it difficult to appreciate life face the task of reinvigorating the childlike ability to wonder (for a classic discussion of wonder and nature, see Carson 1965). Changes in worldviews and meaning systems, including spiritual and/or existential aspects, are also evident possibilities in processes of climate anxiety (Bell, Dennis, and Brar 2022; Jamail 2019).

I have spent some time here discussing PTG and broader adversarial growth because that could be a major asset in encounters between children and adults in the context of climate anxiety. It is evident that climate distress can feel terribly bad, but people could explore also simultaneous aspects of growth, and this is naturally closely connected with the themes of maturational loss and developmental tasks. Thus, I am making a two-fold argument in this article: pointing out that both the loss—and the growth—need more attention and nuance. Adults, including therapists, could help children and youth to see that their climate anxiety contains the seeds of maturation. Adults could—and I think should—validate young people’s climate emotions and explore their dynamics (Kałwak and Weihgold 2022; Mosquera and Jylhä 2022; Pihkala 2022b). The moral and adaptive aspects of “practical eco-anxiety” can be fleshed out, including the ways that eco-anxiety as an emotion can lead to gathering of new information and behavioral changes (Kurth and Pihkala 2022).

People need examples of other people who have survived feelings of climate anxiety, and here both adults and other children and youth may function as role models. Lifton uses the term “prospective survivor” to describe people who have imagined a very traumatic ending and survived that, and who can then engage in a survivor mission of supporting others (Lifton 2017, esp. 153–4). At their best, survivors can mirror both vulnerability and strength, and be able to show their grief and loss. These are no easy tasks, however, and they may complicate traditional dynamics of therapeutic encounters (Budziszewska and Jonsson 2022; Lewis, Haase, and Trope 2020; Silva and Coburn 2022).

For some children and youth, there emerges an ethical and psychological problem of potentially feeling that they have to “carry” the adults. Empathic people, including children, may become such “carriers,” while others remain bystanders (Greenspan 2004). To name a practical example: What should an adolescent climate anxiety survivor do about their relatives who are still in climate denial, some of whom are suffering from repressed or suppressed climate grief? Is it ethical or psychologically bearable that the young person engages in an effort to support the older person’s emotional journey toward more adaptive coping? These are difficult questions which always demand analysis of contextual factors and dynamics, but awareness of these kinds of dilemmas and the ability to speak about them with safe others may at least help.

Psychodynamic and psychosocial thinkers could contribute much-needed depth of analysis in relation to the complexity of people’s processes. Climate change is reality, and humans need to encounter that reality in order to adapt, mitigate, and behave ethically. If people realize that the process of encountering climate reality includes also possibilities for ethical and psychological growth, this may bring some comfort (and perhaps motivation?) to the pain of maturing.

Many contemporary adults have survived the anxieties about the threat of nuclear war, which many of them felt strongly when they were children or young (e.g. Goldberg et al. 1985; Smith 1988). My experience is that in workshops and lectures about eco-anxiety, adults regularly raise the issue of their experience with the nuclear threat, resulting in conflicts between them and climate-aware youth. The youth may feel that the ongoing character of climate crisis is not given enough recognition when older people tell them of how they survived coping with the nuclear threat. Some older people indeed seem to resort to denial of the gravity of the climate crisis via over-emphasizing successful coping with the nuclear threat. However, I also feel in many of these comments there is genuine desire to draw from past experiences for contemporary coping, and one important aspect of growing together would be to find ways to connect the global coping experiences and challenges of people of various ages (see also Heglar 2020). This is also one possibility for engaging with Lifton’s work.

Adults’ developmental tasks

The depth of the ecological crisis—or the comprehensive crisis which can be called, for example, a polycrisis (Henig et al. 2023)—challenges all kinds of developmental tasks, but also the very models of human lifespan development (for an useful overview, see Ivtzan et al. 2015, 31–54). Things which have been considered exemplary may not be so if the environmental impacts are considered. For example, having an esteemed career is ethically compromised if the career is in the fossil industry, which destroys the common climate.

Alternative paradigms have been suggested. Eco-psychologist Bill Plotkin contrasts two models, an ego-centered and an eco-centered pattern of human developmental stages (Plotkin 2008). In the ecologically sensitive model, people in different stages have different tasks, but also different gifts to give for the community. In Plotkin’s view, transformative journeys or periods are essential for enabling deeper growth, and he practically works at organizing wilderness-based options for those (Plotkin 2003).

Plotkin’s ecological depth psychology may sound radical for many, but at least it needs to be asked how adults could engage constructively with their own developmental tasks and needs. This is crucial also in relation to children, in many ways. Adults can provide role models, and often adults need to grow together with children in general maturity and climate maturity. It is not possible here to engage extensively with the developmental tasks of adults, but certain important issues stand out.

Many common developmental tasks are related to human relations, such as finding partners, learning to live in a relationship, and managing family life (Ivtzan et al. 2015, 31–54). There is a need for sensibility about the plurality of possible life paths and some models of developmental tasks are quite Western and heteronormative. However, ecological issues have increasingly started to affect all kinds of developmental tasks. People searching for partners may use opinions in environmental politics as one criteria, and some dating apps have even created filters for climate opinions (Godin 2022). Partners may find out only later that they have different environmental values, and this may cause conflicts (e.g. Kaplan 2023). If and when children appear in relationships, they are affected by the environment-related psychological dynamics between the adults.

Overall, parents (and grandparents) are a group of people who also need special attention and social support. Climate change and the even broader ecological crisis is rapidly changing the dynamics of “good-enough parenting” (see also Weintrobe 2021, 89–90), and parents may easily feel anxious about how to act—or even overwhelmed and helpless (e.g. Baker, Clayton, and Bragg 2021; Holmes, Natalier, and Leahy 2022). There is growing literature about parenting in the ecological crisis, but this literature is sometimes rather simplistic in its emphasis on pro-environmental action, and not inclusive enough of the deeper psychological dynamics that need attention (for various kinds of literature, see Bechard 2021; Cripps 2023; Sanson, Burke, and Van Hoorn 2018).

Parents can themselves experience a plurality of tangible and intangible losses related to climate change. The loss of earlier, easier models (and possibly times) of parenting is one of them, and many dark emotions may emerge in relation to this, such as envy toward earlier generations or bitterness. Becoming a parent can include maturational loss, and amidst the ecological crisis, reproduction decisions are increasingly difficult for many people (e.g. Schneider-Mayerson and Ling Leong 2020). Regardless of what choices people end up making, there may be complex combinations of feelings of loss and gain (e.g. Wray 2022). The concept of role loss (Mitchell and Anderson 1983) can be helpful here, since it pinpoints felt losses of important roles, such as the role of a parent or a grandparent.

Guilt and feelings of inadequacy, of not being enough, are common among parents, and these may intensify during the profound demands of the ecological crisis. It is easy to see how guilt dynamics may prevent parents or grandparents from constructive engagement with children’s climate emotions: It may simply feel too much (Weintrobe 2021; for eco-guilt, see; Jensen 2019). Commitment to pro-climate attitudes and action can bring counter forces to feelings of guilt and shame, but ambivalence should be kept in mind, so that people do not end up in problematic forms of behavior, such as desperate efforts to alleviate guilt by constant action (Hoggett and Randall 2018) or self-deceptive emphasis on tokenistic environmental actions (Sapiains, Beeton, and Walker 2015). Shame and depressive moods are also possibilities. Psychodynamic thought has much to offer in relation to understanding these dynamics better (e.g. Dodds 2011; Haseley 2019; Randall 2005).

Parents would very much like to, and need to, feel that they are regarded as good-enough parents by their children and by their communities. Furthermore, developmental psychologists have often emphasized that people in late adulthood, including grandparents, want to leave a positive legacy and a good memory of themselves (for a classic discussion, see Erikson and Erikson 1998; for various theories, see; Ivtzan et al. 2015, 31–54). All this can easily become increasingly complicated amidst the ecological crisis. For example, if older people and grandparents are seen by climate-aware youth as perpetrators of fossil fuel lifestyles, they can feel threatened of losing their possibilities for positive legacy and respect among later generations (see also Lifton’s framework of symbolic immortality, e.g. Lifton 1979). It would not be surprising if some of them feel existential dread because they fear that the generation of grandchildren will not take care of them when they are old and fragile, also for climate-related reasons.

These kind of psychosocial threats can have many outcomes. One potential result is an increased tendency to use defenses related to denial and disavowal, resulting also in disenfranchised grief. Another option would be to grow caring relations, where shortcomings are understood, but acceptance is also offered (Weintrobe 2021). I often wonder what would happen if climate-aware children and young people were able to offer their parents and grandparents both the message of “humanity needs to change” and “I still love you, even though I’m critical of these lifestyles.”

For parents and other people in midlife, the ecological crisis intensifies the need to develop into more mature adulthood, where facing mortality and finitude is one key issue (e.g. Hollis 1993; Vaillant 2003). The ecological crisis itself can remind people of mortality (for an overview, see L. K. M. Smith et al. 2022), and it would seem that the developmental tasks of “ecological maturity” and death-aware (“second”) adulthood can be closely interconnected. If adults are able to engage in meaning reconstruction (Neimeyer 2019) and life story retelling (McAdams 1996), this also provides children and youth with role models and incentive. Examples of such meaning reconstruction caused by increasing climate awareness (and anxiety) are found in several books (Gillespie 2020; Jamail 2019; Newby 2021; Wray 2022).

Adults, including parents and grandparents, need places to engage with their own feelings, just between adults. Psychological professionals, including psychodynamic therapists, could contribute to this engagement both via their therapeutic practice and as members of community. Many have already done so, for example via organizations such as Climate Psychology Alliance.

Finally, the challenge and opportunity of encountering children’s climate anxiety and grief is a necessary community task: it includes parents, relatives, neighbors, educators, social and health-care workers, and so on. In this communal task, various kinds of psychological expertise, including grief theory and psychodynamic theories, are an essential part of the team of people and range of knowledge needed to address the emotional side of our ecological crisis.

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Panu Pihkala

Panu Pihkala specializes in eco-anxiety research at University of Helsinki, Finland. In addition to writing books and research articles, he works as a workshop facilitator. Among other positions of trust, Pihkala serves as an advisor for the Finnish national project on social health-sector responses to eco-anxiety (www.ymparistoahdistus.fi). He hosts the podcast Climate Change and Happiness together with Dr. Thomas Doherty and often co-operates with artists and educators.