February 25, 2025
Online at 12.00 - 1.00pm EST
With amela McCarroll
This program is offered free of charge. Donations to support the work of the Climate Conscious Chaplaincy Initiative at The BTS Center will be received with gratitude.
As chaplains and spiritual caregivers, how do we understand the ways in which climate change and climate crisis interacts with and aggravates other traumas? According to Dr. Pamela McCarroll, climate trauma — an emerging category — is unique in that trauma experienced from climate anxiety can compound existing traumas, especially since it tends to be continually present and growing rather than a passing occurrence. Individuals and communities experiencing climate trauma do so on many levels — physical, psychological, and spiritual.
In these times of increasing instability and climate devastation, chaplains in every sector — higher education, hospital, prison, military, movement, and more — are offering spiritual care to individuals and communities who are experiencing trauma as a result of the climate crisis. Such work requires a unique set of skills and capacities for presence. As this area of chaplaincy is evolving rapidly, how do we as spiritual caregivers ground ourselves in trauma-informed practice that is spacious enough to meet a wide range of needs and situations while also caring for ourselves?
In this special online conversation, professor and spiritual care practitioner Dr. Pamela McCarroll will join us to examine climate trauma as a framework for interpreting human tendencies toward fight, flight, and freeze reactions in the face of the ubiquitous threat of the climate crisis. And as a spiritual caregiver, she will also invite us to consider trauma-informed practices that lean toward hope for the living of these days.