Eco-Anxiety and Pandemic Distress

Psychological Perspectives on Resilience and Interconnectedness

Douglas Vakoch and Sam Mickey

Presents new research into eco-anxiety by examining it in the context of both the pandemic and the climate crisis
Offers a truly interdisciplinary perspective with contributors from psychology, philosophy, sociology, ecology, musicology, and literature
Represents distinctly global voices with contributors based in ten countries on six continents

Eco-Anxiety and Pandemic Distress

Psychological Perspectives on Resilience and Interconnectedness

Douglas Vakoch and Sam Mickey

Description

As environmental destruction becomes more extreme around the planet, the way humans experience the natural world is changing, giving rise to more frequent and intense experiences of eco-anxiety. Not simply personal or social, eco-anxiety is distributed across the relationships that humans have with the life, land, air, and water of Earth. This anthology presents international and interdisciplinary perspectives on eco-anxiety, with attention to two of the most prominent sources of eco-anxiety today: pandemics, specifically with regards to COVID-19, and the climate crisis. From the microscopic scale of viruses to the macroscopic scale of Earth's atmosphere, instability in natural systems is causing unprecedented forms of psychological distress, including anxiety and related emotional or affective states like grief, anger, guilt, and depression.

Eco-Anxiety and Pandemic Distress both builds upon and moves beyond the latest research in environmental psychology, conservation psychology, and clinical psychology. Dominant research paradigms in these areas rely primarily on experimental and observational methodologies that analyze quantitative data. In contrast, this book focuses on sophisticated traditions of social and cultural psychology in dialogue with other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. The result is a nuanced understanding of the human experience of confronting eco-anxiety, offering critical insights into the subjective worlds of individuals as they grapple with the intertwined existential threats of the climate crisis and pandemics.

Eco-Anxiety and Pandemic Distress

Psychological Perspectives on Resilience and Interconnectedness

Douglas Vakoch and Sam Mickey

Introduction: Eco-Anxiety, Climate Change, and the Coronavirus
Panu Pihkala

Part 1. Cultivating Connection and Resilience
Chapter 1. Cultivating Belonging: Healing Defensive Anxiety in Times of Collective Trauma
Jan Edl Stein

Chapter 2. From Eco-Anxiety to Eco-Resilience: Toward a Psychology of Care
Linda Buzzell and Craig Chalquist

Chapter 3. Walking, Wilderness, and Exposure: Learning from Thoreau's Episode on Katahdin
Christopher C. Kirby

Chapter 4. Self-Quarantine: Deepening Natural Encounter During COVID-19
Elektra Mercutio

Chapter 5. Setting Up for Practice with Eco-Conscious Clients
Jamie Keaton Jones

Part 2. Sociology and Cultural Psychology
Chapter 6. Eco-Anxiety as a Global Affect
Jaouad Achtitah and Said Mentak

Chapter 7. Eco-Anxiety in a Risk Society: A Sociological Perspective
Leonard A. Steverson

Chapter 8. The Complex Role of Anxiety in Public Engagement: Lessons from the COVID-19 Crisis for Climate Communications
Rhéa Rocque, Laura Cameron, and Ian Mauro

Chapter 9. Behavior Change During COVID-19: A Matter of Life and Death?
Filia Garivaldis and Muhammad Iqbal

Part 3. Diverse Global Responses
Chapter 10. The House of Man: Sheltering in the Anthropocene
Susan Haris and Bharati Puri

Chapter 11. Adapting to Eco-Anxiety: Experiences from Zambia
Fred Moonga

Chapter 12. Psychiatric Ward Lockdown in Latin America: Experiences from the Coronavirus Pandemic
Juan Evangelista Tercero Gaitán Buitrago

Chapter 13. Telepsychology as the Primary Mental Health Care Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Philippines
Emmanuel Villoria Hernani

Chapter 14. Sounding the Environmental Benefits of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Southern Nigeria
Olusegun Stephen Titus

Eco-Anxiety and Pandemic Distress

Psychological Perspectives on Resilience and Interconnectedness

Douglas Vakoch and Sam Mickey

Author Information

Douglas A. Vakoch is an American astrobiologist, search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) researcher, psychologist, and president of METI International, a nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to transmitting intentional signals to extraterrestrial civilizations. He has edited over a dozen books in SETI, astrobiology, the psychology of space exploration, and ecocriticism. He is general editor of two book series in ecocriticism and in the intersection of space and society. Vakoch has appeared widely on television and radio as a commentator on SETI and astrobiology. He is an emeritus professor of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).

Sam Mickey is an adjunct professor in the Theology and Religious Studies department and the Environmental Studies program at the University of San Francisco. He is the Book Review Editor for the journal Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, a Research Associate for the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, and an author of several books exploring intersections of philosophy, religion, and ecology, including On the Verge of a Planetary Civilization: A Philosophy of Integral Ecology (2014), and Coexistentialism and the Unbearable Intimacy of Ecological Emergency (Lexington Books, 2016).