Communicate 2019: Riding Waves, Changing Worlds. Presentation by Caroline Hickman

1. Caroline Hickman
C.L.Hickman@bath.ac.uk
carolinehickmantherapy.com
http://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org

2. Gus Speth
US Advisor on
Climate
Change
• ‘I used to think the top environmental
problems were biodiversity loss,
ecosystem collapse and climate
change. I thought that within 30 years
good science we could address those
problems.
• But I was wrong.
• The top environmental problems are
selfishness, greed and apathy, and to
deal with those we need a spiritual and
cultural transformation.
• And we scientists don't know how to
do that’

3. Climate
Change
Psychology
• What can psychotherapy contribute?
• Rationally - we need to focus on technological, political,
economic solutions.
• But maybe this isn’t a fully rational issue
• We have known what needed to be done for many years,
and had technological solutions, and still not acted
• Why? Political, social & economic explanations
• Psychologically perhaps it means facing painful difficult
truths
• Looking at what lies underneath, facing the unknown
• Transformation rather than change

5. Trump interview
with CBS 60
minutes 2018
illustrating: denial,
delusion, muddled
thinking (cognitive
dissonance)
wishful thinking,
inflation
• “I’m not denying climate change,” Trump told interviewer
Lesley Stahl.
• At the same time, though, Trump suggested that climate
change might not be caused by humans; that he did not
want to take any action that would harm the American
economy; and that the warming of the planet by
industrial emissions would reverse of its own accord.
• “I think something’s happening. Something’s changing
and it’ll change back again,” said Trump.
• “I don’t think it’s a hoax. I think there’s probably a
difference. But I don’t know that it’s manmade. I will say
this: I don’t want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I
don’t want to lose millions and millions of jobs.”

7. Psychosocial
Solutions
• Face our denial & other defenses
• Come to terms with our irrationality
• Get under the surface of our feelings
(avoiding them gets in the way of
taking action)
• Make a place for feelings in technical
solutions
• Grieve what we have done & lost
• Understand and confront apathy in a
realistic way (CC is not distant from us
– optimism bias)
• Loss of old ways of living (and
defensive shells)
• Examine, understand & repair our
relationship with the natural world
• Go ‘under’ – depression is important

8. Psychosocial
Solutions
• Strengthen ecological connection
(nature & self in relationship)
• Unconscious dynamics that get in the
way of us facing climate change reality
(denial)
• Use experience of trauma (climate
change as a traumatic event)
• FEEL (depression, fear, anxiety,
sadness, melancholy, grief,
desperation, anger)
• Understanding of psychic pain to help
people deal with ecological disasters
already happening (empathy), and also
contribute to meaningful solutions

9. Bit of a
dilemma
Psychosocial Research with children
Children talking about Armageddon
Defenses, denial, rationalisation, splitting, blame,
trauma, terror, helplessness, rage, guilt, grief,
despair

11. Question – If
climate change
were an
animal, bird or
plant, what sort
would it be?
• Maybe a kind of bug or something that infests,
like a fly or mosquito.
• Flies annoy people and mosquitos bite people
and that gives them energy, so like climate
change takes energy to make it bigger’
• ‘Why did I say that? Because people generally
don’t like them, they’re not nice and cause bad
things to happen’
• Question - What do you think they would say
about climate change?
• Maybe …… you’ve made the world a worse
place so I’m going to do that too, as revenge’

12. • If climate change was a creature, what would it
be?
• A shark (said sharkily)
• What is it saying?
• I don’t want to eat you but there’s not much
else left to eat
• I’m coming now
• Message for adults
• There’s something unbalanced by climate
change, its happening to create a balance

16. • I used to feel close to nature, but not now
• It’s as if nature is fighting back
• When I used to go swimming I used to look forwards
to seeing the fish, like old friends, but now they are
dying, I’m sad because my friends are dying
• We know we will be underwater soon – but no one is
interested
• Its easier not to think about it
• We feel unheard
• Adults think we are stupid, but we see what’s going
on really
• People have lost sight of what’s really important

17. http://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org
• Climate Psychology Alliance
• Community, pack, clan, support
• Podcasts
• Climate Cafes
• Carbon Conversations
• Become an Earth Protector
• Parent groups
• Support School climate strikers
• XR & Deep Adaptation Forum
• Challenge anthropocentric world view
• Art & theatre & creativity
• Joanna Macy Groups – The work that reconnects

18. James Hillman: A Psyche the Size of the Earth
in Roszak (1995)
•‘Sometimes I wonder…..how psychology ever got so
off base. How did it cut itself off from reality? Where
else in the world would a human soul be so divorced
from the spirits of its surroundings?
•Psychology, so dedicated to awakening the human
consciousness, needs to wake itself up to one of the
most ancient human truths:
•We cannot be studied or cured apart from the
planet’