Navigating family systems in climate catastrophe: An open dialogue

Abstract

As the climate crisis worsens, family therapy, like other therapeutic approaches, is beginning to ask: What must be done? In this article, we argue that we first need to ask ‘how do we as individuals understand and navigate the turmoil in which we find ourselves, together with the systems in which we are embedded?’ Drawing on the authors' extensive practice and research experience in climate psychology, we seek to explore these questions. From the vantage of family therapy, we can readily agree that relational, rather than individual, approaches, are required—frameworks that connect emotions experienced by individuals, including ourselves, with the complex and connected systems in which they emerge. Here, we demonstrate an approach that matches form—and methodology—with content: Our dialogical practices refuse a singular, authoritative voice and are capacious enough to include more robust selves and stories. We describe our approach and then reproduce a dialogue between ourselves—a pre-existing community of practice incorporating psychotherapists, psychologists, facilitators and researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds, geographical settings and life stages. Rather than offering a particular programme or agenda for family therapy in the climate crisis, we hope to show a relational stance and method that will encourage the kind of questioning and learning we feel is necessary to deal with a catastrophe of unprecedented scale and complexity—as well as an example of substantive community possible in its shadow.