A Scoping Review of Interventions for the Treatment of Eco-Anxiety

Pauline Baudon and Liza Jachens
Additional contact information
Pauline Baudon: Psychology, Sociology and Professional Counselling, Webster University, 1293 Geneva, Switzerland
Liza Jachens: Psychology, Sociology and Professional Counselling, Webster University, 1293 Geneva, Switzerland

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 18, 1-19

Abstract: As climate change worsens and public awareness of its grave impact increases, individuals are increasingly experiencing distressing mental health symptoms which are often grouped under the umbrella term of eco-anxiety. Clear guidance is needed to enable mental health professionals to make informed choices of appropriate interventions and approaches in their eco-anxiety treatment plans. A scoping review was conducted to examine the current understanding of eco-anxiety and related intervention options and recommendations. The review included 34 records, 13 of which reflected specific psychological approaches. A thematic analysis of the content of the selected records yielded five major themes across interventions for individual and group treatment of eco-anxiety: practitioners’ inner work and education, fostering clients’ inner resilience, encouraging clients to take action, helping clients find social connection and emotional support by joining groups, and connecting clients with nature. Recommendations for treatment plans are to focus on holistic, multi-pronged, and grief-informed approaches that include eco-anxiety focused group work.

Keywords: eco-anxiety; climate anxiety; climate change; therapeutic approaches; psychological interventions; scoping review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/18/9636/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/18/9636/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:18:p:9636-:d:634576

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().