Integrative psychotherapists working with eco-anxiety: Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to explore their experiences.

Abstract

Background: Despite a recent surge in mental health research discussing the concept of eco-anxiety, very little qualitative research has been conducted investigating therapist or client experiences, or possible responses to it in psychotherapy. This research aimed to address this gap by conducting a qualitative exploration of the experience of Integrative psychotherapists experiencing and working with clients who present with eco-anxiety.

Subjects and methods: Semi-structured interviews examined the experiences of 8 Integrative psychotherapists. IPA analysis followed with the assistance of 'Atlas.ti Web'.

Results: 7 themes were identified and these themes encompassed what kind of anxiety eco-anxiety represents, what emotions co-occur with the experience of eco-anxiety, how eco-anxiety is upheld, and what responses eco-anxiety elicited in participants and in their clients. Eco-anxiety was reported as an existential anxiety that raises questions about mortality and is a response to a threat to human meaning-making as well as survival. The major emotions and feelings accompanying eco-anxiety were hopelessness, upheld by the awareness of the systemic nature of the ecological crisis, grief, both due to awareness of current losses in biodiversity and for future losses in the natural environment, anger, induced and perpetuated by political inactivity, and guilt stemming from action-value misalignment and participation in an uncaring system. Stigma was seen as worsening eco-anxiety by inducing a sense of alienation.

Conclusions: Working to accept eco-anxiety as a rational response, avoid pathologizing it, and acknowledging the ecological crisis through group participation and open conversation in psychotherapy are important markers in destigmatising eco-anxiety, and fostering meaning-making and agency in clients affected by it.