Climate Anxiety and Ecological Grief: Distress, Impairment, and Care

Narrative Clinical Review. This page provides the verified citation, abstract, and full-text PDF for the journal article.

Clinical boundary: Concern about genuine environmental danger should not be pathologized or minimized. Severe impairment, depression, trauma symptoms, or risk require individualized assessment.

Publication Details

Author: Christian Jonathan Haverkampf
Journal: The Journal of Psychiatry Psychotherapy and Communication
Publication date: 2022-09-30
Volume, issue, pages: 11(3), 81–90
Article type: Narrative Clinical Review

Recommended citation: Haverkampf, C. J. (2022). Climate Anxiety and Ecological Grief: Distress, Impairment, and Care. The Journal of Psychiatry Psychotherapy and Communication, 11(3), 81–90.

Abstract

Climate anxiety and ecological grief arise in response to unfolding threats and losses; their presence does not by itself establish a psychiatric disorder. This narrative clinical review examines literature available through 30 August 2022 and offers a framework for distinguishing proportionate concern, constructive worry, grief, trauma-related responses, and disabling anxiety or depression. Distress may follow direct exposure to fire, flood, heat, drought, displacement, or livelihood loss, or arise through anticipated futures, repeated information, political inaction, moral conflict, and damage to a valued place or species. Assessment therefore requires two forms of realism at once: external danger must not be minimized, and impairment, suicidality, sleep disruption, compulsive information seeking, avoidance, and loss of function must not be overlooked. Evidence for climate-specific psychotherapy was limited at the cutoff. Clinicians should use established treatments for diagnosable conditions while adapting formulation to environmental context, culture, age, inequality, and collective responsibility. Useful work may include emotional differentiation, recognition of grief, calibrated media boundaries, restoration of daily function, values-guided action, relational support, and tolerance of uncertainty without false reassurance. Action may strengthen agency, but it is neither a prescription nor proof of recovery, and institutional responsibility cannot be transferred to distressed individuals. A clinically appropriate response acknowledges the basis of the distress, assesses its effects on functioning and safety, and helps the person remain engaged with life while uncertainty and loss continue.

Keywords

climate anxiety; eco-anxiety; ecological grief; solastalgia; psychotherapy; climate communication

Full Text

Open the full-text PDF

The PDF is searchable and preserves the journal layout and pagination used in the citation.

Related Information

Health Information and Safety

This journal article is educational and research-oriented. It is not a personal diagnosis, treatment plan, medication instruction, crisis service, or substitute for assessment by a suitably qualified clinician who knows the person’s circumstances.

Do not start, stop, or change medication or another treatment solely because of information on this page. New, severe, persistent, or worsening symptoms, or uncertainty about risk, require individual professional assessment.

If there is immediate danger or a risk of harm, contact local emergency services or urgent support. In Ireland, see:

Website copy first made available on 26 August 2026. The journal citation retains the article’s issue date.