TADEAS:
TADEAS:
The existential panic in "Don't Look Up" is real. I see it in my clients | Salon.comhttps://www.salon.com/2022/01/08/dont-look-up-ecotherapy/I will say that in general, as a climate-aware therapist, there is a deafening silence on the issue of climate change amongst adults in the therapy room. While I've been contacted by clients coming into therapy with climate anxiety as their main issue, the bulk come in for other reasons: life transitions, family, work or school, relationships or pandemic stress. If anyone brings up the subject of climate change, 8 out of 10 times it's a teenager.
Still, the topic of climate change seems to be affecting our mental health collectively on a deep level. More than 2/3 of Americans (67%) are somewhat or extremely anxious about the impact of climate change. A 2021 international study of young people ages 16-25 indicates that 84% are at least moderately worried about climate change.
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From a climate psychology perspective, this is a story of defense mechanisms: there's President Orlean's (Meryl Streep) disavowal of the topic of the impending comet strike. There's Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance playing a tech robber-baron amalgam), whose magical thinking and opportunism reveals itself as vapid denialism. Then, there's the public itself, who are depicted as distracted, polarized, and easily herded. These are but a sample of the psychological complexity that we are up against in real life when we try to discuss existential crises like climate change.
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Our best hope is multi-pronged: global-political determination, a new model of regeneration and a committed social movement. Hope lies in the power of the collective, of more voices chiming in, of civic action, forcing political, capitalist, and industry reckonings — only then the "Great Turning," as Joanna Macy calls it, will come. Filmmaking, storytelling, art, and music, are powerful forms of creative expression — inviting and reminding us to look up.