Imagine for a moment a place that you frequented, or that had special meaning to you as a child – it might be a beach on Cape Cod, or a special nook behind a garden shed, or an apple tree that you plucked from on your walk to school. Now imagine that particular object or place being gone forever, washed away by floods, or too polluted to swim in or cut down for a road to be constructed. While those events may seem minor, if they occur, we grieve something of ourselves in that loss, in both memory and in meaning. These places are more than just physical locations: they are repositories of childhood memories and experiences, making their loss deeply personal.
We are living in a time known as the Anthropocene, a geological age in which humans have become the single most influential species on the planet, causing significant global warming and other changes to land, environment, water, organisms and the atmosphere, resulting in the extinction of countless species and massive climate events, contributing to the losses mentioned above. Wildfires, massive flooding, and extreme heat have become commonplace occurrences that all of us have either experienced ourselves or know someone who has. We are at a planetary tipping point, where every action we take, every law passed or struck down, every defense we engage in or work through, has significant ramifications for generations to come. We have strayed from our connection, and our place, on the earth.
Psychoanalysis has a significant place in this context, beginning with the work of Harold Searles (1972). Sally Weintrobe (2021), a British psychoanalyst, believes that the spirit of psychoanalysis can offer us an understanding of as well as a direction out of our current situation. In her seminal text, Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis: Neoliberal Exceptionalism and the Culture of Uncare, she posits that such defenses as projection, denial, disavowal, and a feeling of omnipotence all play a role in the unfolding of the climate crisis as we experience it today. And because of this, the moral injury, or sense of injustice, about what is happening to the planet affects not only us, but also our patients as we experience this world together. How do we hold our own feelings, as well as theirs? How might we imagine a culture of caring as it applies to our planet? How can we foster improved mental health by turning to nature (Adams & Morgan, 2018)? And because we are writers as well as psychotherapists, how might we “write wild” (e.g., turning to the natural world for creative inspiration) in order to form a “creative partnership with nature” (Welling, 2014)?
This weekend we will examine the intersection between psychoanalysis and the climate crisis, as well as how this dialogue can enrich our understanding of ourselves, our patients, and the non-human world. To advance this objective, we will consider what it means to “write wild”, and by doing so explore our attachment to the natural world, as well as explore what it means to foster a culture of care. This will be an offering of hope and resilience!
Coordinators: Donna H. DiCello, Psy.D.
GUEST FACULTY: TBA