Therapists are reckoning with eco-anxiety
By Isobel Whitcomb, Gizmodo
EarthBeat
April 17, 2021
Andrew Bryant, a therapist based in Tacoma, Washington, felt helpless the first time climate change came up in his office. It was 2016, and a client was agonizing over whether to have a baby. His partner wanted one, but the young man couldn't stop envisioning this hypothetical child growing up in an apocalyptic, climate-changed world.
Bryant was used to guiding people through their relationship conflicts, anxieties about the future, and life-changing decisions. But this felt different — personal. Bryant had long felt concerned about climate change, but in a distant, theoretical way. The patient's despair faced him with an entirely new reality: that climate change would directly impact his life and the lives of future generations.