EP 192: Thomas Doherty | Climate Change and Mental Health

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Hi. Welcome to the Radical Responsibility Podcast. This is your host, Fleet Maul. And today's episode, I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Thomas Daugherty, a clinical and environmental psychologist based in Portland, Oregon, with a pioneering role in addressing the mental health impacts of climate change. This is something we're all interested in today and something that's impacting all of us. So Dr. Daugherty has incredible expertise to share with us and how the reality, the existential threat of climate change is affecting all of us.

Welcome, Dr. Daugherty.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Well, it's great to have you here. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. So I'm going to share a bit of your background with our audience and then we'll get started, okay?

Okay, sounds Good.

Great. So, Dr. Thomas Daugherty is a clinical and environmental psychologist based in Portland, Oregon, who has been developing, who has developed a specialty addressing people concerns about environmental issues and climate change. His multiple publications on nature and mental health include the groundbreaking paper, the Psychological Impacts of Global Climate Change, co authored by Susan Clayton and cited over 700 times. Dr. Daugherty is a Fellow of the American Psychological association, past president of the Society for Environmental, Population and Conservation Psychology, and founding editor of the academic journal Ecopsychology. Thomas was a member of the APA's first task force on Global Climate Change and founded one of the first environmentally focused certificate programs for mental health counselors in the US At Lewis and Clark Graduate School. He also co hosts the Climate Change and Happiness podcast. Dr. Daugherty is originally from Buffalo, New York, and I think from that bio, everyone can tell why we have you on the summit, why we're really lucky to have you here. We're looking at a lot of issues around climate change as we have each year on this summit. This is our third annual Global Resilience Summit. We've looked at a lot of the science, we look at policymaking. We look at various forms of activism, both to mitigate global warming and work our way to net zero in terms of carbon emissions. But it's also really important to think and explore how we're working with this emotionally and psychologically. So I'm really excited to have this conversation with you.

So, to begin with, the overarching inquiry of this summit is how we can deepen and sustain the individual, collective and systemic resilience we need to confront, work with the really daunting challenges facing humanity today, not the least of which is human caused climate change, global warming. But we know that we have an incredibly divisive and polarized cultural and political landscape here in the US and many places in the world. Continuing war and conflict around the world. And now we have this really tragic war and refugee crisis unfolding in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, as well as everything that's been going on in Syria in many places. We've been through two years of the global pandemic, which seems to be abating, we hope, but you never know. There was a recent outbreak in Hong Kong, I think.

So it's been a really tough time. And so I'm wondering what it's been like for you and your community.

And then kind of what resilience means to you. To begin with, how you would define resilience?

Yeah, that's a great question. And Felida, I'm glad to be here and I just thankful to the listeners and reaching out to people, whoever's watching around the world.

Yeah, I would start with just some general comments and get into the resilience topic a little bit. To me, there's three basic tasks when we're dealing with environmental issues and sustainability issues. There's the kind of expressive tasks talking about how it feels for us, what our emotions are. There's a descriptive task of, you know, what it, what is it, what does it mean, what's our information, what's our data, what's our education and knowledge? And then there's that prescriptive task, what to do, what to do about it. And I know you're, you're covering all those bases in the, in this summit. Often the, often a lot of sustainability work focuses on the latter two. The, the description and the prescription, certainly science and policy. And as a psychologist, I'm much, I'm much more attuned also to that first level, what do people feel about this stuff? And so I try to really bring that out and that's come out in my work and in my research and things like that. And my, you know, mental health impacts of climate change are, you know, are, you know, at a primal level, emotional impacts as well as the physical and things like that. So, so that's just a good framework to start with. So it gives people permission to talk about their feelings. I find if you don't, the feelings are going to bubble up in the other categories. They're going to come out in the Description and the prescription, and people get really stressed and urgent and fearful and attached to their, attached to their approaches. And I think we need to be able to work together across differences and diversity. So getting our feelings out is helpful. Resilience is a neat word, I think, with things like resilience or eco anxiety that we'll talk about and all these things. I think there are invitations first of all to talk about a concept in a diverse way, because resilience means different things to different people. And.

There'S this kind of blind men and elephant phenomenon that happens sometimes with our work where there's a concept and people latch onto different aspects of the concept and say it's resilience is about the economy or resilience is about our emotional health or our spirituality or our community or our culture, etc. Etc. And that's. Those are all true. So when I approach a concept like this or when I'm working with a person around some of these concepts, we kind of approach the whole elephant, as I say, you know, and you know, it's not my job to necessarily tell people what they need to believe about something, again as a mental health professional, but my job is to help them be the best person they can be and help them to navigate. And so again, if we do that, then I think it avoids some pitfalls because as a white male in Portland, I have some privilege and I have some safety. And so when I, when I start talking about resilience, it might be, it might unconsciously reflect my, my individual life placement and that might mean very, something very different to someone in another part of the world. But, you know, to get into a resilience has obviously scientific meanings and very specialized meanings. But I typically start with a common meaning. It's, it's the shape of something and does it retain its sh. After I stress it out? You know, so a bicycle tire will, will retain its shape after it, it hits a bump or a rock or something like that. And if it develops a leak or a flat, then it loses its resilience and it doesn't operate in the same way. And so that brings us into our own lives. Like if we do, if we are pray to climate impacts, like are we resilient, can we bounce back? And all that sort of stuff in terms of our life, our community, our life, our family. But then again, it's also an invitation to think about what is our current level of life and do we want that to bounce back? Is it actually satisfactory for us? Do we want it to be different so climate Change is this huge teachable moment in crisis. There is opportunity to look at the situation because, say, in some towns in the northwest here that have been dealing with fires, catastrophic fires, after the fire passes, what does rebuilding look like? Some people have homeowners insurance, some people don'. Existing divisions in the community are brought up. Does someone want to rebuild exactly what they had before, if they can, or do they want to build something better? So it's a bunch of questions about what it means, what shape is your life, what shape are our lives and what shape do we want it to be?

Is that helpful?

Yeah, yeah, very helpful. And we're going to explore some of that in detail. And I liked your framework of the expressive, the descriptive and the prescriptive. And I think those things are fairly interrelated in the sense that obviously to do the mitigation we need to do around increasing global warming and to really move towards net zero carbon emissions, we're going to have to pull together in a big way. And there's no signs of us coming together right now. We're going to need much more social cohesion than we have to create the consensus and the political will to make really tough choices, lifestyle choices, economic choices. And, and even if it also, if it's about adapting to the inevitabilities of climate change and climate change disruption, that's also going to require social cohesion. So how each of us is dealing with this individually, how we feel about it, are our, you know, our emotional experience, our identifications. You know, somehow we've got to get to a healthy, a healthier way of being with this because it seems now we tend to, you know, on one extreme you have a lot of denial. On the other extreme you get a lot of high level activation that can go into anxiety, it can go into depression, it can go back into denial, or it can go into, you know, anger. But, you know, somehow we need to find our way into, you know, enough kind of individual and collective resilience where it wouldn't be okay. This is, this is a really daunting challenge facing humanity. What are we going to do? How do we come together and make the right choices? So it does seem like they're all interrelated. I wonder if we could explore, before we go further, just a little more about your background in terms of, I mean, you've been a mental health professional, a psychotherapist and a counselor for I think maybe almost three decades or something. But how did you gravitate towards this field and become a recognized expert in ecopsychology? Or counseling around climate anxiety and things like this?

Yeah, that's a good question too. And my, you know, like a lot of people's paths, mine was. Has been somewhat organic and I wouldn't have. Would have not necessarily predicted some of it, but some key turning points for me.

In terms of my education. I'm originally from western New York. Buffalo, New York is where I grew up in western New York State and went to college in New York City.

Came out west after college and lived in the western US since then.

I didn't originally study counseling or therapy in college, but I was interested in that field. And when I came out west when I was younger, I started working in outdoor therapy programs, particularly with young people. And that was my entree into. So I had a non traditional entree into the. Into the counseling field. But through my work in my early career, I did outdoor therapy, learned a lot about the benefits of nature and mental health, really in a personal, you know, ac. Visceral way, doing this work. And then I was a professional river rafting guide. I worked in the Grand Canyon, had some great learning experiences that opened me up to environmental issues and just the state of the environment in many ways. Working in the canyon, for example, tuned me into the dams and the systems and politics and the history. I worked for Greenpeace for a while as a fundraiser and advocate. And so I had an environmental education mixed kind of organically with this outdoor therapy work. And then I had some mentors that were counselors and psychologists that I worked with when I was younger. And they inspired me to go back to school to study counseling. And one thing to another, got into my doctoral program, which is more traditional, training in hospitals and medical centers, learning about the mind, body, connection and work, you know, working in cardiac rehabilitation, as I did for my dissertation. So things kind of came together in that way. So I had that early experience as someone who didn't grow up with outdoor, you know, experiences that was new to me and as a young adult, but I really learned about that. And so I developed this interest originally in the outdoor therapy, and then that started to grow more broadly into people's connections with nature in the natural world. And I discovered environmental psychology and eco psychology and some of these subfields that were less known at that time, and started to work in that area. And as I developed my practice in Portland, Oregon, I started to teach and talk about these topics with clients. And I eventually created a certificate program teaching counselors how to do outdoor therapy. I essentially created a program that didn't exist When I was looking for one when I was younger. And that led me into academia and to work in the Climate Change Task Force. And then that was another turning point, working on the first American Psychological Association Climate Task Force, because I plunged into the literature about disasters, disaster mental health, and then the climate change work that was being done at the time. And that led to this idea of what are the mental health impacts of climate change, and particularly the emotional impacts, as I was talking about earlier, which was a bit speculative ten years ago, but now is not. I mean, it's a common experience of people. And unfortunately, in some ways, the world is kind of caught up to me in this. But that's a little story about how it built. It was somewhat organic, and it's just become more important, more and more central to my work.

Incredibly timely and necessary now. And I'm glad I asked that question because obviously you have a really broad and deep background in this. It isn't just a topical thing, thing that you, you came into. You've been building on this for a long time. So I know one of your therapeutic modalities has to do with getting out in nature, doing nature walks. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how that relates to, to working with anxiety. I mean, I've often felt, I have a background in psychology. I didn't end up becoming a licensed therapist. My career took other directions, but I, but, but I had all that training. I've often felt a lot of times, you know, you bring someone into an office, you have them on the couch or in the chair, know people are anxious or it might be better, hey, let's go out and take a walk and have a, have a nice conversation while you're walking. Because there's such benefit in just getting out of doors. So how did you develop the nature walk kind of therapeutic modality? And how does that work?

Yeah, that's a great question, too. I really love the ability to walk in myself in an outdoor setting and think about life. And I think it really adds a nice flavor to walking and talking with someone.

And it's interesting when you look at the history of psychotherapy. There's Sigmund Freud used to walk with some of his clients around the Ringstrasse in Vienna. I mean, so it's not that far out as you might think. Although there is a stereotype of the urban office, the psychoanalyst couch, and things like that. But part of this for me, and there's a certain subset of therapists that have worked in the outdoors, in the Past doing more, you know, elaborate, you know, expeditions and things. So it gives you a basis of just safety and risk management and understanding about how to do outdoor stuff. So it makes walking, walking in the park relatively simple. And, you know, behavioral therapists have done work in the world with people for years. Like they have phobias and things, they've taken them out into the world. So there is some. There's actually more history there than people might think. And there's just a ton of robust research on the health benefits of nature and the natural world at all different levels. There's studies in the hospital setting. There's really influential studies that say just even a window view of greenery from a hospital room speeds people's recovery and they need less pain medication. That's why hospitals, modern hospitals are really on the bandwagon of having gardens and greenery and trying to bring the outdoors inside. So it rests on a pretty solid empirical foundation. Some of it is physiological, looking at heart rate and blood pressure and all that sort of stuff. And then there's a lot of research on creativity, you know, creativity and perspective taking. So it's a dose response effect. If you or I take 5 minute walk around outdoors somewhere during a workday, it gives us a short rest bit and we can collect our thoughts if we spend an hour, two hours, it's a larger, you know, larger kind of perspective taking a day and afternoon. So. And it leads to these more retreat type experiences or vacations or expeditions and things like that. So there's sort of a dose response to it. But it's not for everyone. And it's not also not to say that people don't benefit from being in a comfortable office and being safe and private. That's perfectly fine. But I find a lot of people really appreciate the opportunity to walk and talk. They want to be. They don't want to be sedentary. You know, sitting is not healthy for us. So they want to move. They think differently. I always say we think differently. When the sky's over our heads, we often are a little more expansive and reflective. We get a little more perspective. And then there's tons of aesthetic beauty potentially and metaphors with the seasons. And again, there's the diversity piece. Not everyone has grown up with safe, happy feelings about nature. And so it is a fit. You shouldn't force people to do this. It might be out of their comfort zone. So we got to think about the comfort zone of the person, their culture. But everyone deserves an invitation. You know, it's the birthright of all of us to be able to do this kind of thing. So with all this, all of our conversation, there's a social justice and environmental justice piece lingering around, you know, but so naming that, but also not making. Make sure we can open this to everyone.

Yeah, and I think we'll bring that up further. We're going to talk about. I know in your work you talk about the idea of environmental identity, but of course, along with this nature walk idea, does this vary from like getting out in the park versus getting up in the woods or getting out in the wilderness? I mean, is there a spectrum across which this is done?

Exactly, that's. That's exactly right. There is a spectrum. And that's what I'm teaching therapists about this or just educating clients. You know, there's. We talk about, I mean, nature is another one of those terms that's, you know, got the blind man and elephants sort of thing. Different people think of nature differently, broadly. But you know, if you just think of nature as the out of doors or natural spaces, there's a spectrum of nature actually. It starts indoors with plants and pets, even just images or photographs or paintings. So we have a spectrum of, from kind of virtual and indoor nature through what the researchers call nearby nature, which is parks and gardens and local green spaces. And then you've got managed nature like farms and rural areas and managed forests. And then you've got so called wild nature, which might simply be very undeveloped or it could be in the US a literal recognized wilderness area. And there's a spectrum. And then people fit in there. Some people really want to get out into a wild area. Other people are more urban and so it's more nearby nature. So there is a spectrum and there's benefits. Your heart rate and blood pressure will go down even just by having plants in your office.

Just a kind of a little aside. I've done a lot of work with the Oregon Department of Corrections and one of the facilities, they have something called the Blue Room. I don't know. I think it is blue. I don't know why they didn't make it green.

But incarcerated persons who are struggling the moment can ask to go spend time. They can go spend like an hour. They call it the Blue Room, but they watch nature movies in there. So it's an indoor setting and they watch these nature movies and it just, you know, brings them right back into a good place. And I've actually been doing a lot of research on it. I'm not sure why it's called the Blue Room instead of the green room, but. Or why they painted it blue instead of green, I'm not sure. But they do watch. Watch nature films. And evidently it really works.

No, you're right. And I have to say I didn't mention. But I. I did some work at. Here at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility here in Oregon when I was teaching at Lewis and Clark. We actually had students, you know, counselor students as being interns at the correctional, working in the garden that they had, which was another step up from the nature imagery. And the incarcerated folks really took to the garden. It was beneficial on multiple levels. And so I'm a big proponent of. A lot of people don't realize you do because of your work, but these connections around nature in facilities like, you know, correctional facilities or even that correctional facilities have conservation programs where they use their grounds to propagate pollinators and things like that. So, you know, once you get into this work, you find all these connections you might not have expected. Yeah.

I wonder if you have a. I'm sure you're aware of this. There's a tradition that I've become aware of a little bit from Japan called forest bathing. And I think you can become a certified force bathing facilitator today or something like that, and really spending hours out in, you know, kind of real woods. Right. Where there's a lot of the chlorophyll, the greenery, you know, And I would imagine that ties into what you're talking about.

It does. And that's, you know, Shinrin Yoko. The forest bathing isn't. Isn't. It's a good example of a non US Tradition. Right. The. I got a chance to go to a forest therapy conference in South Korea several years ago, and it was really neat because they have a different tradition of nature in the outdoors. They don't have a wilderness concept in places like Korea or Japan because they're much more ancient cultures than here in the US and they do just have a slightly different approach. And so this idea of bathing in the forest is really just breathing in and being present. And they get quite elaborate in research about the smells and tastes and touches of things. And there's pathways, for example, with different kind of levels of stones and rocks and materials that you walk on with your bare feet to kind of give yourself, to stimulate yourself. And so it's just a neat example of diversity in terms of connections with nature.

Yeah. I'm wondering, especially if.

People are already dealing with some anxiety around climate change would get out, especially more in wilderness areas or unspoiled areas. If that might bring up, trigger some of the grief they're feeling about habitat and species loss and the dangers that we're facing or trigger their anxiety around, you know, the disruptions very likely headed our way due to global warming. And I'm just, I'm just wondering if there's anything like that where the getting out of nature could also trigger some reactions for some people and then maybe that's a way that they can then work with it. I don't know. But I'm just curious about that kind of landscape.

Yeah, no, that's a really astute observation as well. And it is true.

I do a lot of nature connection exercises and helping things that, you know, ways to help people develop their sense of environmental identity. And there's always potential shadow sides in this because people sometimes have bad experiences. One of my catchphrases is that we have issues and we have issues. So we have capital I issues, things we want to work on, things we want to achieve. And then we have our lowercase I issues, our personal issues, our baggage, our woundings, our limitations, you know, our neuroses and things like that. And so that's a case where I might have a value about being in nature, but it does also activate concerns that I have. There is a classic saying by the conservationist Aldo Leopold, you know, the penalties of an ecological education as living in a world of wounds. So it's something I've experienced knowing about nature, knowing about history of a place you do confront degradation and loss.

Pacific, in the Pacific Northwest, there's areas that have been clear cut and we have these historic salmon runs that we have no more, and we have the native presence and all this sort of stuff. So as we do get educated, it does open up these dark, dark opportunities and dark feelings. So it's something to integrate in. It is. Again, ignorance is bliss. But we do want to understand things and as we get older and understand things, we do have to grapple with, with injustice and issues. And so it's part of the maturing process. So I do think it is a, in some cases a growth opportunity, but it's something to manage and first of all, just to validate again, at the emotional level.

Yeah, I just want to explore that a little further. So I don't know if you're familiar with Joanna Macy's work. A deep ecologist, environmentalist with a Buddhist background and she had her work around the Council of All Beings and other things and really encouraging people to, to open to the reality of species loss and habitat loss and everything else going on with the environment and then be willing to go through a grieving process around that and feeling that the kind of wisdom and action we need to do is actually going to be on the other side of that being willing to grieve. Her first step was first bear witness, then grieve, and then see what comes out of that in terms of actions we can take. I'm just kind of wondering if that resonates for you for some of the kind of maybe deeper work that needs to happen.

Yeah, it does. I'm influenced by Joanna Macy. I was able to do a workshop with her personally years ago and got a chance to see these groups in action. And it's, you know, really influenced my. Myself and my sense of myself. And yeah, I think, you know, there's. In dealing with grief and loss and basic environmental emotions, there's. There's kind of two main pathways. There's the despair empowerment path, where we go deep into the dark emotions like you're talking about. And then there's also like the. The broaden and build, which is more of a positive psychology approach where we start with inspiration and curiosity and we build. We build on that. And those are two really valid ways of approaching things. We each. We each need different things at different times. So when I'm training therapists, these are just two. There's two gears, right? There's the. There's the dealing with the dark emotions or. Or dealing with the bright emotions. And, you know, depending on where I am in my despair and empowerment curve, I might be really excited about a new project and really inspired. And so that's great to be the cheerleader for someone. And then other times, people might be on the downhill slide where they're really fatigued and struggling with the immensity of the problem and feeling like there's no answer. They get into that trough and that's a place to sit with people.

And again, we have also our temperamental style. Some people tend more toward the dark direction in terms of what's helpful for them. Other people tend to be bright. So that's. That's yet another sort of diversity piece, like, how do you meet people where they're at? And with my work, I try to keep that 360 view, like there's all the emotion. So I don't want to limit people by starting out with only with the problems or only with the positive. We want to kind of do the 360.

That makes a lot of sense. And so let's talk about that. Then. This. You've Been bringing up this important issue of diversity. There is no one size fits all. And recognizing the various social justice issues and so forth. And you work with this concept called environmental identity, which kind of encompasses that. So I'm wondering if you could talk about that and the role environmental identity plays within your work and within ecopsychology and echotherapy.

Yeah, I think, you know, as I, you know, of all the things we talk about, environmental identity might be. Might be the biggest takeaway for people because it's this neat concept that. That isn't really well known, but I think it's ready for prime time.

The idea of environmental identity comes out of social psychology and environmental psychology. And it's essentially a person's sense of their identity, their self concept, their beliefs about themselves in relation to nature and the natural world and other species. And so it's much like other kinds of identities that we have, like our gender identity, our cultural identity, our sexual identity, regional identity, socioeconomic. These different identities, which we are all kind of being more trained to be aware of these days and to really recognize and stand for our identity and support other people in their identity development. And so environmental identity joins in there as another facet. And so.

A common misunderstanding with environmental identity is that you either have one or you don't. Like, you're either an environmentalist or you're not. And that's not the way to think about it. We don't. We don't say you either have gender identity or you don't. Everyone has some variation on this. It might be more or less articulated for people. But we all have something even implicitly in there about how we think of our gender. So similar with environmental identity, we all have an environmental identity, but they're different. Some people have a really articulated kind of sense of themselves in relation with nature in the natural world. Think of nature writers or poets or things like that. And other people. It's more gut level, you know, not necessarily expressed. And then it gets into all the different facets, different values. Some people have more of a, you know, a egalitarian view of nature as being a part of the natural world and humans being part of the web of life and, you know, more interpersonal or, you know, inter being, you know, spiritual view, holistic view. Other people feel more of a distinction between themselves and nature. Even if they're supporting nature, being conservationists, they still see a distinction that. And other people have more of a utilitarian view about nature as nature's subservient to humans. So it encompasses the whole political Spectrum and it encompasses all kinds of different cultures around the world. And so it's a neat conversation to be having with people about what is your environmental identity. And to me, it's sort of like it's a gift that keeps on giving because once I start to have that idea, it never, like all identity development, it never ends. Your identity, your environmental identity has been evolving your whole life and it continues to evolve just like mine. And so once you open that concept for people, I just think it's really fascinating and really interesting.

So, and I'm sure whatever anyone's environmental identity is at any given time or how that's evolving, I mean, you're, I'm sure you're validating that obviously. And you know, you spoke about the importance of empowering people and their identities being a standard identity, validating identities and so forth. And, and we're doing a lot better job with that these days of recognizing that in diverse terms. And at the same time, some of our spiritual traditions involve kind of maybe a pathway of going beyond limited identities a little bit. So there's that push, pull a little bit. And you even mentioned like the Thich Thanh idea of inter being. So I'm wondering if you imagine a pathway there when someone has a fairly integrated.

Self structure and is able to move in a little more expansive, maybe deconstructive phase in their life and their path journey. Sometimes people talk about the journey from ego to echo. Right. That, you know, we may, often we start off in life with we're making most of our decisions on basing what do I want, what's good for me. Then we maybe if we get involved in a family, we start, you know, making some of our, say, well, what's good for my family and then maybe what's good for my community? And we maybe get to what's good for my people or my nation state or humanity altogether, and then maybe we get to what's good for the world system, for all of life, you know, that very expanded view of self. And so I'm wondering if you kind of see a pathway in terms of how we evolve psychologically, emotionally from getting our footing in life, which is really important, having a sense of who am I and who am I in relation to where I am and my background and the place I'm in, and then what's my pathway to evolving in light of some of the things that might bring us more together around how we're going to work with climate change and so forth.

Yeah, no, this is really great. I think, you know, you're anticipating a lot of, you know, the things I talk about in my groups and with therapists. I mean, when you go back to the research, you know, there's three main values that set people off on environmental behaviors. There's. There's egocentric values, like, you know, like you say, concern about yourself or your family or your possessions and things. There's altruistic values where you're concerned about things outside of yourself. And then there's the biocentric or the eco values. And I see them as overlapping circles. It's like, it's not that I lose my personal values when I become ecological. It's really about overlapping circles. And then certain people do. And it also depends on the context. With some problems, it does directly affect me. Climate change is moving now from affecting people's bio and altruistic values to literally their own survival values, you know, depending on where the impacts are coming to you. So that's. That gets us into some of the personal experience of climate change. And that's what's been sad and, you know, urgent about my work, is that it's no longer abstract. Like in the. Even where I live in Portland, or where you, you know, you've spent time here, you know that climate change impacts used to be pretty abstract. Here we thought, we're protected in the Pacific Northwest. We've got the water, we've got the forest, we've got this temperate climate, and that security has been ripped away with fires and smoke, and we're still coming to grips with it. So I have had climate refugees next door where neighbors are asking, can my relatives stay in your basement because they have to move out from the fires.

Everything was experienced in Vancouver recently as well, between fires and floods and extreme weather.

And so again, we're kind of being expansive in our talk. And this is all ecological, so we go in a lot of directions in these talks. But I do think for some people, there is a kind of a developmental pathway to become more expansive in their sense of values. And again, the diversity piece is kind of not necessarily imposing models onto people, but having people develop their own models and their developmental models. And. But this. And this starts to dovetail with spirituality and traditional religions and various things. So, you know, I do think the spiritual dimension is always close by, either whether it's just a. Like, I think I consider myself a reverent materialist. Right. So I'm reverent about nature, the natural world, but I tend to be more science based in my work. But it doesn't mean that I don't have a spiritual side to myself. And some people have different views. And so that's a whole other place of both meaning and also consolation. Like, you know, you talked about ego and letting go of ego. I mean, I think when we get into life development and coming to grips with climate and these issues is having transpersonal and transcendent goals where I realize this is larger than myself, larger than me. I will do my part, I will contribute, I'll be the best person I can be. But ultimately I'll come and go and this world is going to go on. And for some people, I think that can be a consolation.

Yeah, absolutely. And I like what you said. These things are overlapping and certainly allowing everyone from whatever their identities and background are to find their own pathway and validating that. And at the same time there are, you know, there is some universality human life and you know, so different cultures. And then we've kind of, we've kind of seen some things that may have some universality to them. And in terms of that kind of developmental process, one I like from the integral work in spiral dynamics they talk about the idea of transcend and include. It's not either or. It's like maybe you're kind of somehow something is taking it open to a next level of inclusivity, of expansiveness, but you're not leaving behind anything. It's the idea of transcend the limits of your previous paradigm but include. So I like that model. Yeah. So.

You know, there's a, in terms of our emotional response to the realities, really the existential threat of human caused climate change and global warming. We see different views on the science and different predictions about the timing. But now it is becoming much less abstract. We're actually seeing evidence of it and it's already severely impacting people around the world, especially some of the most vulnerable and marginalized communities around the world and places in Africa with drought and, and that there's so many things going on in the world and most scientists are predicting it's going to become much more severe. And we're not talking about the far distant future. And certainly what our children and grandchildren will inherit may be some really significant challenges now kind of at the far end of that spectrum. I don't know if you read Jim Bendel's papers. He had kind of a really predicting kind of various levels of collapse. And he was going so far as to suggest that at this point we should really be taking more of a hospice model. Really kind of the same way we approach the end of life. That this could be the end of humanity's time on Earth. That's a pretty extreme position to take, but maybe it is at least worth considering it to be part of the conversation. But sort of in light of that, but also in light of, you know, if we are kind of paying attention and we are realizing that things can get and we could see really serious economic, social, political disruptions, it could lead to warfare over scarce resources. I mean, we can be seeing some really serious stuff in the next several decades or sooner. So how do we prepare for that? As a psychologist doing this kind of work, you know, what's kind of the work of preparing ourselves, our families, our communities to have the resilience, to have the psychological fluidity, well being, psychological spiritual perspective, whatever it is, to find our way forward in ever more challenging times. Because otherwise, you know, we do have, we're biological creatures, so survival is job one. And we can easily get triggered back into the fear and survival based parts of our biology. What doesn't often lead to the most partnering or collaborative kind of approaches in life. So, you know, how do we remain our best selves, individually and collectively to face these really daunting challenges that may be coming our way? Yeah, that's a big question.

I know. Well, I'm feeling the question. You know, I'm feeling into it. It's a question we all, we live the questions, right? You know, as they say, we're living this question out and so we have to sit with it. You know, I was watching in a training earlier, African American counselor was talking about environmental and social justice and talking about the ability just to do nothing. His challenge was to temporarily do nothing so he can be more prepared to take action. And so I think when we sit with these questions, we do need to stop and just let the questions sit with us because there's this immediate fight or flight response where we want to have an answer and take action. But that is, you know, as Thoreau said, it's, it's not a characteristic of wisdom to do desperate things, right? So we want to be able to stop for a minute and think about this. Not forever, but for, for a minute. I mean.

I like Jim, Jim Bell, Jim Bendel's work. I mean I like any work that is honest and really speaks the truth. Right. And so I do think for some people, they need, they need to hear that. They need to hear about hospice and collapse, because they do. I do feel that is a valid approach to the situation.

And there, but again, there are many ways to move forward here.

One of the exercises that I do around action that I started when I was teaching, I call it the lineup, right? And so I would have my group, people, students or people I'm working with, I would have them just stand up from our room and line up in one line. And I'd say in this, in this end of the room is the front line. That's, that's where the barricades are. That's where the smoke is and the tear gas and the people that are blockading, you know, the, the pipeline or Dakota Access, you know, water keepers and things like that. And that's the back line over there, that's behind the lines. And I want you to line up, you know, in one line how you think you, you fit in relation to the front line. And it's an interesting, you know, mental exercise to see where people are going to go. Some people are frontline people. They're going to go to the front line. When I was a young man, I was involved in college with apartheid demonstrations at my college and blockading buildings and things. And I didn't know even much about the issue, but I was on the front lines because that's what a 20 year old does, right? And you know, and so some people are frontline, some people want to support the front line, but they don't see themselves, for various reasons, on the front line. Now, I'm a parent and, you know, I do this work, so I may be better served not being on the front line but doing other things. But the takeaway is that there's a space for everyone. You might be on the front line, you might be just behind the lines. You might be doing food or shelter or first aid or dealing with children or doing websites or fundraising or marketing. Or maybe you have other tasks that are important that have to be done in terms of caring for other people in the community or your own family. Or you're just in a place where, say you're a new parent and you have an infant and you need to be with your children. So it gives people permission to find their place in line. And that's going to shift and evolve over time based on where we are in our life and also what the context is. Some of us might go to the front line. When we look at what's happening in Ukraine and around the world in Eastern Europe, some people have no choice. And that's the other environmental justice piece. Some people have no choice. By default, they're on the front line. Right.

Someone's in their land and right in where they are.

Exactly so that's when I'm getting into the action again. I'm trying to do this in a way that honors people's place. That's one place where I would go and then start with that. Then the action becomes authentic and it flows from the person, and then it becomes.

A learning experience.

I do personally believe that there are things to do. I mean, you know this from your work. You know, when you're in this territory, you meet a lot of inspiring people doing a lot of fascinating and interesting things. And if you can, you know, get away from the news for a while and really get into an action place with people.

I'm inspired by my clients. I'm inspired by people that I meet. And I realize, wow, there's a lot going on. Thousands, arguably millions of people every day go to work to help climate change, to save the planet all over the world. And I try to remember that as well.

Well, you. You named a couple of really important things, and that last one is so important because, you know, there's a phenomena called the negativity bias. We're kind of biologically set up to give most valence to threat and to pay attention to the negative. But there are a lot of amazing things going on in the world, and there's millions of people doing really good work, and. And I do think it's really important to remember that. And I also liked this idea about the front lines and behind supporting the front lines and kind of giving permission for people to be in that spectrum and also making a distinction. Like I was thinking as you were speaking about Ukraine. You know, a lot of us are. It's really captured a lot of people's attention and they want to help and they want support. Now, probably, if you're not from Ukraine, going to the front lines is all but impossible. Now, although I'm very much in touch with people in Eastern Europe because the work I do, and there are people from other countries going there and volunteering on the front lines. There's Ukrainians returning home to be on the front lines. But for the people who are living there, they have no choice about being on the front line. Whether they're soldiers or civilians, it's happening right in their neighborhood. So that that issue of choice, I think, is always important. It brings to mind indigenous communities in our own country where they are facing these pipeline companies, and the pipelines are coming right to their ancestral lands and their. So they have no choice but to be on the front line. Right. And so I think always keeping in mind who has choice and who has privilege and who's able to. But, but also to give people a way in. Because there's lots of ways that we can support things, whether it's, you know, donating to organizations we feel are doing good work or getting involved locally with our community, as well as the kind of actual frontline work. And I think giving permission for people to find their own way and their own, find their own way into that, I, I really, really appreciate it. I think that's really great. Another, another part of your work which I think is really important because, you know, it feels like we have to identify things that we have a lot of science around. What supports psychological well being, spiritual well being, what supports resilience. We have a lot of great science and the whole intersection of neuroscience and mindfulness today, as well as positive psychology. We know a lot about what supports health and healthy functioning. But how do we get that information out to people and how do we support people at scale? So I love that you're training up more counselors and more therapists in your model. And so if there's a lot, you've learned a lot and you're able to support people, but you can only support so many people directly. So the fact that you're training people in these models I think is really wonderful. So I wonder if you could just speak about that part of your work a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, I just, I've been doing 10 week, you know, training, training group with, with therapists. I'm just starting, I'm actually just starting my third iteration of that. And yeah, my process is helping therapists and counselors to.

Come in touch with their own environmental identity. Right. Which is very helpful for them. And it's often eye opening for them and then to think about what they already know and what they're good at. My experience is that almost every effective counseling or therapy treatment can be adapted in a climate or eco context. Certainly cognitive therapy or interpersonal therapy, or stress reduction, acceptance and commitment therapy. All these things, all these models that are contemporary are quite useful. And then it's about.

How can they have to do their own frontline exercises? Well, like where do they fit now? Is it in their practice? Do they want to, to volunteer to be an advocate, an activist? Maybe they just want to know about this for their personal life. Right. And so it's, there's a, there's a, there's a real strategic and practical piece to it. Like some, some settings, they might not be able to employ this. How do they become a pathfinder to raise people's consciousness. And so that's the kind of thing we talk about. And then it's really practical. There's kind of a process that people, when they're coping, it happens naturally over time, but we can kind of accelerate it in therapy. We can help people to physiologically soothe themselves and to calm down and to lower their stress response and learn coping skills and just on a physiological basis. And then we can get into the cognitive, you know, the reframing situations, not getting tunnel vision, not being, not catastrophizing, not having these biases you talk about, like negativity bias and all this other stuff really do set that mental hygiene.

You know, and then it's about how do we support this process, the environmental identity process with each person and then finding their, their unique values and then where do they fit in the line? And so we're, again, we're, we're helping people to be the, the best they can be in this crisis. You know, that's, that's the, the gist of it. And it's not that hard to learn. And if you're already a good therapist, you've got so many skills that can be employed. We just need to just get them customized slightly and get them in the right direction. So I think there's a whole army of therapists out there that are kind of hungry for this now, too. So it's really neat. This climate stuff, again, is not abstract. Therapists themselves are being impacted by smoke and heat and all this sort of stuff, and they're thinking about their family. So it is also philosophically interesting because it's a participant observer kind of thing. Like, we're in this too. But I love the work, and it's really rewarding. And again, it's inspiring to lead people through this path. Some of the therapists I talk to, they say, no one has ever asked me how I feel about this ever in my life. No one has ever asked me how I feel about extinction or climate change. So they're having these epiphanies they've been asked to serve, but they've never really been asked themselves how they feel about it. And so even just doing simple things like that is really important.

Well, it sounds fabulous. And so important important. And obviously, whenever you're training people to do that kind of work, they need to do the work themselves. That's where it starts. And so thank you so much, Dr. Daugherty. There's been really inspiring conversation, and it's so gratifying to know that this kind of work is happening. And I hope it can can really continue to grow and go to scale and benefit a lot of people. So thank you very much.

Yeah, thanks Vliet. And thanks for letting me talk about my work. I appreciate it.

Yeah.

Be well.

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