ABSTRACT
Based on interdisciplinary research and practical workshop experiences, the author offers tools for evaluating and working with various aspects of climate grief. Climate grief manifests both as acute grief and a persistent mood, like sadness. Both tangible and intangible losses need attention; as climate grief can include numerous kinds of felt losses. Because the climate crisis is so severe and long-lasting, it is challenging to discern between normal but deep forms of climate grief and those forms which require clinical attention. Climate guilt and grief are often interconnected in profound ways, and work with either requires taking both into account. ‘Reality testing’ climate guilt can help with complications of climate grief. The therapist's own emotions of grief and guilt are a challenge and potential asset for this work. Among other grief theories, Robert Neimeyer's framework of ‘meaning reconstruction’ and narrative re-storying are engaged with.
