Eco-emotions and Psychoterratic Syndromes: Reshaping Mental Health Assessment Under Climate Change

Abstract

Human activities like greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and deforestation are largely responsible for climate change and biodiversity loss. The climate is a complex system and scientists are striving to predict, prevent, and address the aforementioned issues in order to avoid reaching tipping points. The threat to humankind is not only physical (ie, heat waves, floods, droughts) but also psychological, especially for some groups. Insecurity, danger, chaos, and an unstable system due to climate change have both short-and long-term psychological effects. In this scenario, the need for new psychological categories is emerging, namely, eco-emotions and psychoterratic syndromes which include eco-anxiety, ecological grief, climate worry, and climate trauma. This paper focuses on these new categories, presenting a summary of each one, including definitions, hypotheses, questions, and testological evaluations, as a useful tool to be consulted by researchers and clinicians and to help them in the therapeutic work. Also, this paper endeavors to distinguish between a psychological stress resulting in a positive outcome, such as pro-environmental behavior, compared to a stress that leads to a psychopathology. Prevention and intervention strategies including social and community support are fundamental to help cope with and mitigate the effect of climate change on mental health. In conclusion, the climate crisis has led to an enormous increase in research on climate change and its consequences on mental health. Researchers and clinicians must be prepared to assess this complex phenomenon and provide help to those who cannot cope with anxiety and climatic mourning.

Eco-emotions and suicidal ideation and behaviour: A systematic literature review

“…In recent years, a few scales have been developed specifically to measure eco-emotions. A comprehensive search by Cianconi et al 5 identified ten validated psychometric tests for assessing eco-emotions and psychoterratic syndromes; measuring specifically eco-anxiety, eco-grief and solastalgia (e.g., The Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale 26 ) Nevertheless, further testing, validation and use of those scales in surveys, and ideally in cohort studies including also suicidal ideation and behaviour, is encouraged.…”

“…The most described eco-emotions in the literature include eco-anxiety, eco-grief, and solastalgia. 5…”

“…The prevalence of eco-emotions is likely to increase as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced and widespread, potentially having significant implications for mental health and, in extreme cases, leading to suicidal ideation and behaviours. 5,6,14 A recent Lancet seminar by Knipe et al 15 highlighted climate change as a key global risk factor of increasing importance for suicide and self-harm. What is the current evidence?…”

Measuring Planetary Eco-Emotions: A Systematic Review of Currently Available Instruments and Their Psychometric Properties

“…9,18–25 Climate change anxiety, climate anxiety, climate change worry, or environmental anxiety are often used interchangeably; in some studies, however, it was suggested that climate change anxiety is a subset of eco-anxiety. 17 Eco-anxiety and eco-grief exhibit distinct characteristics: eco-anxiety is primarily focused on the future, reacting to anticipated ecological losses, while eco-grief is more centred around real or past ecological losses, or reactions to future situations causing current losses 14 . Eco-grief resonates strongly with solastalgia.…”

“…26 Often eco-anxiety has been used as an umbrella term capturing all these related emotions. 22,27 Yet disagreements regarding the definition of this concept continue 14 implying that the understanding of these phenomena is still in the process of development. 28 Other concepts that encapsulate some eco-emotions are also found in the literature, such as eco-coping, eco-concern, and eco-uncertainty (Box 1).…”