Climate change, mental health, and eco-anxiety

This chapter will examine the interrelationship between climate change and mental health, including discussion of how classification of mental health and disorder has changed over the years and cannot be separated from the values and agendas of the dominant society at the time, this will help us consider the contemporary emergence of eco-anxiety through a critical lens, especially the polarized arguments that surround it. The chapter will explore different psychosocial approaches to help understand the emergent mental health phenomenon of climate anxiety. It will look in more detail at the mental health impact of climate change on children, young people, and indigenous people. The chapter then ends with an introduction to psychosocial solutions to climate anxiety including eco-psychology, “climate aware psychology” and climate justice that challenge the medical model paradigm and offer transformational approaches to mental health for a world affected by climate change and ecological stressors.