Personal change leads to system change

I had what I thought of as the dream job in Educational Psychology. Meaningful work in inner London schools, a supportive and fun team with a stimulating CPD programme, managers who were cool with flexi-working and took care not to overload their team. I even had links to research and training through a secondment position as a tutor/lecturer at University College London. I gave it all up.

Why? Put simply, I don't believe that our mental health and educational systems adequately support children and young people to face the challenges of today. We (western societies) seem to be stuck in systems which reward competition, consumption, blame and separation. We consider wellbeing a 'nice to have'. Our economic and educational systems, on the whole, value achievement and status over community, care, and living well. It's no wonder we have a mental health crisis, particularly pronounced in the young. 

The statistics back me up. Referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services are at an all-time high and continue to grow (more than doubling since 2019 levels). The reasons for this are complex and varied but include the impacts of Covid-19, the cost of living crisis, online harms and the climate and ecological crisis. Otherwise known as the 'polycrisis', the interconnected challenges humanity faces today are urgent and changing quickly. A 2022 survey by Save the Children found that 70 per cent of 12-18 years olds are worried about the world they will inherit. How can we ignore this and carry on with a 'business as usual' model of education and mental health support? I don't think we can. 

As an educational psychologist, even when I was successful in helping a young person to access mainstream education, I wasn't confident that this was enough to enable them to live well in the world today. When I took a step back and looked at the bigger picture, suddenly my old job seemed like a waste of time. If we really want to help vulnerable young people to thrive, we need to change the context they are being told to thrive in. 

The climate and ecological crisis is perhaps the most tangible and immediate face of the polycrisis. It might not feel like it, but it is also a problem that we have a degree of influence over (as opposed to, say, global conflicts or the proliferation of A.I.). As an ex-physics graduate and science teacher, I knew how little the general population was aware of climate truths. 

So, in 2019, I tried to nudge our systems from the inside – running a Climate Change Working Group of educational psychologists to develop a support offering of guides and training for schools and parents. 

While the interest was there, capacity was not. Schools repeatedly reported that they don't have the time or headspace to incorporate climate considerations, nor did the Educational Psychologist training programmes. The systems wouldn't budge. 

It was time for a different approach. 

From climate inaction…

With the privilege of a sabbatical at the start of 2024, I packed it all in to try to bring climate and environmental wellbeing into mainstream schools through ClimatEdPsych.com. and a form of mainstream activism that has me speaking at festivals and conferences, liaising with Department for Education programmes and jumping occasionally into the mainstream media. I'm campaigning, alongside others, for greater awareness and resourcing of the mental health and wellbeing impacts of the climate and ecological crisis. 

It's been an interesting year. At times, the resistance to the climate message is palpable. Our psychological defence mechanisms are so strong that they allow many (if not most?) people to ignore climate conversations or avoid headlines and get on with their day-to-day. Notice what happens for you when you read the following:

• U.N. Secretary warns of a 'code red for humanity' and that we're on track for an 'uninhabitable' earth 
• Many ecologists believe we are in a sixth mass extinction, with some estimating 150 species per day becoming extinct.
• UNHCR estimates that 21.5 million people annually become displaced due to climate related weather events. By 2025, the figure is projected to be 1.2 billion. 
• Half of schools in the UK are at risk of flooding (DfE, 2023).

Are you down-playing the credibility of these reports and stats? Maybe you think I'm over-egging it. Maybe you're alarmed, but resting in the comforting thought that there will be a technological solution. I am finding that this 'technosalvation' argument is becoming increasing common. Sadly, it is just another mechanism of climate inaction, much like diffusion of responsibility and the sunk cost fallacy (Gifford, 2011).

I also contest the resistance that says 'many people are just struggling to get by day-to-today and can't think about climate'. We know that those who are already more systemically marginalised are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to complex intersecting, socioeconomic factors (Islam & Winkel, 2017). In the UK, it's the families who are already suffering from the cost of living crisis who will also be more vulnerable to the effects of heatwaves or flooding.

It seems our psychological defence mechanisms are working over-time to make the problem go away so we can carry on with business as usual. But business as usual is no longer an option. To accept the reality of the climate and ecological crisis means opening to the feelings of anxiety and grief that it may provoke. It means each of us actually doing things differently. While it is distressing enough learning of the droughts, wildfires or hurricanes in the most affected counties, we are increasingly feeling the first-hand effects of climate impacts here in the UK. Climate change has a 'significant and multi-faceted impact on mental health and emotional wellbeing' (Lawrance et al., 2021) that is both related to knowledge of climate breakdown and the traumatic experiences of first-hand impacts. 

As acknowledged by the British Psychological Society's Climate and Environment Action Coordinating Group, psychologists and mental health professional have an important role to play as we guide people to face up to the reality of the climate and ecological crisis and adapt to the systemic changes required. Effective and compassionate therapy, education, and mental health support must encompass an understanding of how inequalities are part and parcel of this crisis and how it is psychologically experienced. I honestly can't think of a more pressing or more challenging task for all psychologists.

…to climate action

But the BPS isn't alone. In late 2021, the CEO of the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), contacted the Climate Cares team at Imperial College, the British Association of Counselling Psychologists (BACP) and the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC), the British Psychological Society's Psychotherapy Section and the Climate Psychology Alliance. They held a climate psychology summit 'Sleepwalking into the Anthropocene' to coincide with CoP 26. From this initial alliance grew the Climate Minds Coalition - a union of leading UK mental health organisations and professional bodies calling for greater recognition and investment in how our sector can play a role in supporting the UK in the climate emergency.

I'm delighted to share that the wider British Psychological Society is now a member and so joins other major psychological and mental health professional bodies including, BACP, NCPS, Mind, Student Minds, the Centre for Mental Health, EMDR UK and the UK Council for Psychotherapy.

Launched in October 2024, The Climate Minds Coalition's purpose is to amplify the united professional voice towards UK policymakers, parliamentarians, the media and the public on climate emergency and mental health. We are advocates for a culture in which the mental health impacts of climate change are widely recognised, adequately funded and supported by trained professionals and through communities of support. 

But what does this mean for me?

In reading this article, you'd be forgiven for feeling a sense for reassurance that the BPS and the Climate Minds Coalition 'have things in hand'. Far from it – in all honestly we are a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers, struggling to bring this urgent issue to people's attention. The risk of burnout in 'sustainability' professionals is high. We need climate awareness to be woven into our job descriptions, into our systems and practices. The scale of system change required involves everyone, not just a committed few. To sit back and assume that someone else will sort it is the classic and perhaps most common cognitive bias hampering climate and ecological mitigation and adaptation effects – the bystander effect. 

We know that globally, 80 per cent of people are in support of stronger climate action and policy; but for things to change, we need everyone to start acting like it. Be the change, don't just wish for it. Really, we don't need people like me giving up their jobs to try and change a whole system, we just need all parts of the system, changing together. That's you. 

What would this look like in practice?

It can be hard to know where to begin. The climate and ecological crisis is so complex and big that our brains just can't comprehend it all.  

One trick of climate psychology is not to try to 'have the answer' and just to start small. So, sign that petition, respond to that consultation, start asking questions in your own profession. Read some papers or blogs on climate anxiety or climate denial within your own field and see if you can apply it to your practice. Just start talking about it and see what happens.

It's up to each of us to work out where our influence lies, and work with that. It can be helpful to understand that each of us is part of many interconnected systems, so that we can't change things alone, but that each of us is a crucial part of system change. 

One thing that I do find helpful, in face of so much messiness and uncertainty, is to have a solution-focused 'vision' or a narrative of what we are aiming for. In my own field of educational psychology, this is mine:  

Children in schools know that adults are safeguarding their future, because they can see schools and their parents taking steps to sustainability and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Every school has a full-time equivalent Sustainability Lead who coordinates the practical and educational adaptations required. Children feel supported emotionally, as there is a culture of sharing and expressing of feelings, woven into teaching. Teachers are supported by trained professionals such as educational psychologists, who guide them on how deliver age-appropriate truths, or how to respond to a pupil in distress. Teachers themselves have access to additional mental health support circles and time to process their own emotions as they arise. In terms of curriculum, rather that teaching to test, children are encouraged to develop their critical thinking skills, to cut through the misinformation online and learn to listen to each other, forming and debating their own considered view on matters. In an age where A.I. can do much of the logical thinking, empathy and creativity are prioritised. Pupils feel empowered to affect change as they have been supported to do so thorough their school careers in pupil-led project learning to improve their own communities. Rather than chasing external validation through the acquisition of material possessions, they have deeper sense of connection themselves, others and the planet as whole – knowing that we are interdependent. They face the challenges that are coming with emotional resilience and cognitive flexibility.

What would it look like in your field?

• Dr Louise Edgington is an Educational Psychologist with a physics degree, which included atmospheric physics, energy studies and climate physics. She now runs an independent climate psychology practice, ClimatEdPsych.com and is a member of the BPS Climate and Environment Action Coordinating Group.

References

Department for Education (2023). Sustainability and climate change: a strategy for the education and children's services systems. 

Gifford, R. (2011). The dragons of inaction: Psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation. American Psychologist, 66(4), 290. 

Islam, N., & Winkel, J. (2017). Climate change and social inequality. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Working Paper No. 152 

Lawrance, E., Thompson, R., Fontana, G., & Jennings, N. (2021). The impact of climate change on mental health and emotional wellbeing: current evidence and implications for policy and practice. Grantham Institute briefing paper, 36, 1-36.