This article was published in the British Gestalt Journal in December 2019.
Earlier this year the UK Government declared a climate emergency. What does this mean for the psychotherapy profession? This article explores the threshold moment that we find ourselves in, gives an overview of the current thinking on eco-anxiety, solastalgia and the trauma responses that are connected with the demise of our ecosystem. It proposes that we find ourselves in a malignant state of normality and suggests that we urgently need to develop ways to re-ensoul the culture that is costing us the Earth.
A few years back, when I had just finished reading my 4 year old daughter a bedtime story, she suddenly looked very serious, grabbed my face and said: ‘Mummy I love you sooo much. I don’t ever want to be without you... but you will die before me, won’t you?’ In this moment I felt this tug in my heart that reminded me that our love for each other and the inevitability of heartbreak are intertwined;
Somebody once said to me “I wished I could speak another language, one that I have never lied in...”. I can relate to that wish of being able to start our storytelling afresh; the idea of being able to reinvent who we are by telling our stories in a different light.
Fear can be a trickster that comes in many different guises, sometimes dressed as anxiety, sometimes as anger, shame, obsession, self righteousness, control, depression; in fact anything that stops us being present and connected in the Here and Now
