Liz Marks (Bath, UK)

Understanding and responding to eco-distress in our patients (and ourselves)

Date et salle :   samedi 23 mars 2024, HUG, Belle-Idée, Les Champs, Genève ou en Visio

Horaire :           9h00 – 12h30

Prix :       membres ASPCo Frs 90.- /non membres Frs 140.- psychologues et psychiatres formés ou en formation

Délai d’inscription :         19 mars 2024. Les inscriptions sur place restent possibles mais sont majorées de Frs 10.-

Modalité de paiement : en cas de désistement une semaine avant l’atelier 20% de frais seront facturés. Après ce délai, ou si un(e) participant(e) inscrit(e) n’assiste pas à l’atelier, le 100% est dû.

Description de l’atelier

The climate and ecological crises pose an existential threat to humanity, with millions already exposed to the direct, such as extreme weather, and psychological sequelae such as trauma. Increasingly, indirect exposure, through the growing awareness of these crises, is regarded as a significant psychological burden for people around the world. This ‘eco-distress’ (also termed eco-anxiety, climate anxiety, ecological grief) may lead some to seek specific support. More often however, people may find that eco-distress is one stressor amongst many others in their life, which may interact with other mental health problems. Importantly, therapists may also experience eco concern and distress themselves.

This workshop will introduce the existing evidence for ‘eco-distress’ and the cutting-edge research about how to define this phenomenon. Attendees will develop an understanding about what eco-emotions tend to arise in people, that it is different from clinical conditions (such as anxiety) and involves more than distress. Attendees will be invited to explore their own thoughts and feelings about these crises, to allow them to experience the benefits and challenges that can arise from paying attention to such feelings, equipping them to better respond to patients who bring these feelings to the therapy room.

A transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioural model will be used to explore what CBT can offer in terms of explanatory power for eco-distress. Additional theoretical models will support understanding this complex and multifacted experience including ecological identity, moral distress and injury, and the importance of understanding climate justice and the inaction of those in power as contributing to distress.

Importantly this workshop will frame eco-distress as something that may be experienced by the individual, causing suffering, some of which can be alleviated using existing psychological tools. However, it is seen to be a rational response to global societal ills and these ills require collective, global solutions.

The workshop will offer potential ways of supporting people with eco-distress, to find meaning and empowerment.  This will include formulation, cognitive-behavioural techniques (as appropriate), third-wave approaches such as dialectic thinking, compassion, mindfulness and acceptance, and thinking about how to build ‘active hope’.

Biographie express

Liz Marks is a Clinical Psychologist and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bath, where she is Clinical Director of the Doctoral Training Programme in Clinical Psychology, and Deputy Director of the Bath Centre for Mindfulness and Community (BCMC). She is a CBT practitioner accredited with the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapists (BABCP).

Liz spent a decade working in the field of clinical health psychology, using CBT and mindfulness-based therapies to help people with chronic health conditions such as tinnitus and hearing loss. Over the past few years she has redirected her attention to the climate and ecological crises that we are facing, with a particular focus on understanding, defining and responding to eco-distress – the painful psychological burden we all hold as we become increasingly aware of the deterioration of our planet’s health and collapsing eco-systems.

She is also interested in the healing aspects of nature, and the use of contemplative practices such as mindfulness, compassion, kindness, gratitude, nature-connection and interdependence to support the wellbeing of individuals and communities. 

Références bibliographiques

• Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, R. E., Mayall, E. E., … & van Susteren, L. (2021). Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(12), e863-e873.

• Marks, E., Atkins, E., Garrett, J. K., Abrams, J. F., Shackleton, D., Hennessy, L., … & Leach, I. (2023). Stories of hope created together: A pilot, school-based workshop for sharing eco-emotions and creating an actively hopeful vision of the future. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 8402.

• Verplanken, B., Marks, E., & Dobromir, A. I. (2020). On the nature of eco-anxiety: How constructive or unconstructive is habitual worry about global warming?. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 72, 101528.

• Whitmarsh, L., Player, L., Jiongco, A., James, M., Williams, M., Marks, E., & Kennedy-Williams, P. (2022). Climate anxiety: What predicts it and how is it related to climate action?. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 83, 101866.

• Marks, E., Overbury, K., Player, L., & Hawley, E. The Climate and Ecological Emotions and Distress Scale (CEEDS): Evaluating the psychological impacts of the climate and environmental crises (submitted to Lancet Planetary Health)