Climate-Aware Therapy

Climate distress is psychological distress due to

climate change and government inaction to address the crisis. Climate distress can include a broad range of emotions such as anxiety, hopelessness, fear, guilt, shame, grief, loss, and helplessness. Climate-aware therapy provides a safe space for these feelings to be felt and voiced. This includes validation of your unique experience in becoming fully aware of climate and ecological destruction. I use clear steps I’ve formulated to work with climate distress such as using the stages of grief, connecting with the movement of people helping create a socially and ecologically just world.

A healthy response to an unhealthy situation

Feeling distressed about climate change is a healthy response to an unhealthy situation. Whatever feelings you are having, they are valid. Having a safe and welcoming space to process these sometimes confusing and complex emotions can be relieving.

Treatment

includes validation of your feelings and experience, clear boundaries on media consumption, and connecting to like-minded community. For some, aligned action naturally unfolds from addressing their climate feelings.

Experience

I am a certified ecotherapist (nature-based therapist) and member of the Climate Psychology Alliance. In addition I have studied permaculture design and natural building at Quail Springs in California. And volunteered for the central coast chapter of The Bioneers Conference as well as writing their newsletter. I have formulated a unique and effective series of steps for individuals and groups to move from distress to inspiration. I developed this approach through personal and professional experience.

Testimonial

“I found Maia at a time in my life where I was, for lack of a better term, feeling quite debilitated by my own climate anxiety – I was struggling to find the motivation and focus not only to do my day job, but to go about my day to day without a strong sense of overwhelming fear. Working with Maia gave me a safe harbor to speak to those anxieties, and speaking to someone educated about the realities really helped shift my despair and distress to a place that I would now call educated optimism. Maia challenged me to connect with the broader movement of climate activists and community members, which helped broaden the scope of media and news I was consuming (and introduced me to some really wonderful people and stories!) and asked me to answer the question of what a reimagined future could look like, both of which helped reframe my own anxieties into new contexts. I highly recommend working with Maia if you find yourself struggling with climate distress – others are too, and there’s plenty of help and hope out there!”

- anonymous climate distress client