Clinical Ecopsychology: The Mental Health Impacts and Underlying Pathways of the Climate and Environmental Crisis

Abstract

Humankind is confronted with progressing climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, and/or destruction of the air, soil, water, and ecosystems. The climate and environmental crisis is probably one of the greatest challenges in the history of humankind. It not only poses a serious current and continuing threat to physical health, but is also an existing and growing hazard to the mental health of millions of people worldwide. This synergy of literature provides a current summary of the adverse mental health impacts of the climate and environmental crisis from the perspective of Clinical Psychology. Furthermore, it presents potential underlying processes, including biological, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and social pathways. The existing data suggest that the climate and environmental crisis not only acts as a direct stressor, but can also exert a detrimental impact on the various pathways, with the potential to amplify an individual's biopsychosocial vulnerability to develop mental ill-health. This is a call for an increased investigation into this emerging research field of Clinical Ecopsychology by clinical psychologists and other researchers.

Keywords: climate change; mental disorder (disease); mental health; resilience; vulnerability.