BIPOC communities will be hugely affected by the climate crisis, yet climate-aware therapy doesn’t fully serve them.
Here’s how the field must change.
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I feel like an imposition.
I feel distant from others.
Alone, she wrote.
Caroline Hickman is a psychotherapist based in the UK. She is also a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance.
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Caroline Hickman is a psychotherapist based in the UK.
She is also a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance.
Young people are particularly susceptible to its blows.
Many of them told me that their typical client tends to be the white, middle-class, university-educated environmentalist.
However, compared to these rather enfranchised clients, climate change threatens BIPOC communities in a far outsized way.
BIPOC communities are also more likely to live in polluted areas.
Residents of Death Alley face high death rates from cancer, respiratory, and autoimmune diseases.
Yet many climate-aware therapists say they arent serving many clientele of color, particularly those who are also low-income.
The influences on this are manifold, complex, and culturally specific.
Caroline Hickman is a psychotherapist based in the UK. She is also a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance.
Decolonizing therapists also question what expertise itself looks like.
Decolonizing therapists also embrace the power of ancestors and spirit for healing, Dr. Mullan says.
The connection then is, how did my people survive?
How did our ancestors get through those dark times?
Thats where spirit comes in.
They had to believe in something, and they were strong and they fought back.
That is therapy, too.
There are also unconscious forces at play that are important to address.
Lets hope it develops further as a lever for justice in our careening planetary predicament.
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