{"id":108570,"date":"2019-11-04T13:52:52","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T19:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thechicagoschool.edu\/insight\/?p=108570"},"modified":"2020-01-02T15:06:22","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T21:06:22","slug":"a-natural-disaster-for-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thechicagoschool.edu\/insight\/from-the-magazine\/a-natural-disaster-for-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"A natural disaster for mental health"},"content":{"rendered":"

As long as humans have walked the earth they\u2019ve been at the mercy of Mother Nature. Today, advancements in technology have helped us to mitigate the effects of her wrath by giving us the ability to often predict\u2014to a certain extent\u2014when and where a disaster may strike. However, a warning only helps if those being alerted choose to listen.<\/p>\n

Imagine emergency radio and television broadcasts informing residents of the southwest that a Category 5 hurricane was blowing their way, or the wail from hundreds of sirens in Hawaii attempting to alert people about a screaming tsunami that\u2019s nearing the islands. Now, imagine no one seems to care.<\/p>\n

This is how millions of people view the collective inaction to address climate change\u2014and it might be starting to have a detrimental effect on their mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have always been worried about dangers emanating from the natural environment,\u201d says Christoph Leonhard, Ph.D., faculty in The Chicago School of Professional Psychology’s Department of Clinical Psychology. \u201cAnd worries about the adverse effects of environmental events have always caused mental health distress\u2014both in anticipation of such events and subsequent to their occurrence. However, the fear of global warming is quite recent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the late aughts, the term ecoanxiety began to gain prevalence as a way to describe the mental health impact people were feeling in relation to greater awareness about the negative effects of our changing climate.<\/p>\n

A 2014 report by the American Psychological Association (APA), Beyond Storms & Droughts: The Psychological Impacts of Climate Change, references the term, stating that \u201cqualitative research does find evidence of some people being deeply affected by feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration due to their inability to feel like they are making a difference in stopping climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, ecoanxiety is not currently recognized as a diagnosable condition by either the World Health Organization or by the American Psychological Association, \u201crather it is a term coined in the last couple of years at the nexus of mental health journalism and environmental activism to describe the discomfort some, especially young people, feel when considering possible future environmental degradation,\u201d Dr. Leonhard says. He cites environmental activist Greta Thunberg saying that she wants folks to panic about the environment as an example of how the terminology is better leveraged for political purposes than clinical diagnosis. \u201cThe way it is written about, I’m not sure there is any goal to mitigate its potential mental health effects.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this context, those interested in aggressively pursuing action on climate change hope to trigger a fight-or-flight response by underscoring the potential negative consequences we will face. They want you to feel anxiety because it may be the only way to spark immediate action.<\/p>\n