Climate change, fragmentation and collective trauma.
Bridging the divided stories we live by.
Bridging the divided stories we live by.
Steffi Bednarek
You can read the pre-publication of this article below. Here you can read the published article.
This article explores psychological responses to climate change with the lenses of brain hemisphere imbalance, the fragmentation process of collective trauma and the Jungian maturation theory of two halves of life, which views suffering as a necessary component in the move towards a ripened culture. The perspective of climate trauma is widened to an intergenerational aspect. The article argues that the disowned and marginalised aspects of society need to be reintegrated, bridging cultural compartmentalisation and balancing the unequal representation of left and right hemisphere attributes. The writing itself aims to demonstrate this by weaving in and out of different paradigms.
Introduction
As I write, the corona virus has taken hold of our lungs, our economy and the rhythms of daily life. The Covid-19 death count reminds us that we are vulnerable and mortal beings who are utterly entangled with the environment we live in. The pandemic emphasises the fragility of life and highlights that western societal constructs are not as solid as we may think. The capitalist story traditionally promised safe lives into old age, control over the forces of nature and the idea of continual progress. But technical advances are currently unable to stop the rippling effects of the virus from unfolding. If we add climate change into this mix, we enter the territory of literal and symbolic death, including death of the familiar. The enormity of losses ahead open up a collective trauma field that will have far reaching consequences on the mental health of many and in turn, the psychological response to adversity will shape the future of the world. We live in important times.
Covid-19 is unlikely to be the last new challenge we encounter. We are set for disruptive levels of global warming and may already have passed an irreversible tipping point (IPCC, 2018). No place on Earth will be spared the consequences, but those who already suffer from social inequality, poverty and marginalisation will be disproportionally affected. Climate injustice and the competition over sparser resources are likely to widen the social gaps that already exist. Social unrest and mass migration are likely to increase (The World Bank, 2018).
Warmer climates will most likely increase health risks through the introduction of new diseases into areas whose communities are not sufficiently adapted (Centric Lab, 2019). In order to avoid catastrophic runaway climate change, Western industrial nations will have to dramatically change their way of life. No nation is currently on course to meet the target of CO2 emissions needed to keep global heating to the minimum of 1.5 C, set out in the Paris agreement. In fact global emissions are rising rather than decreasing. Once the seriousness and scale of the problem sinks into public awareness, the risk of a global mental health crisis is high. How do we meet the enormity of the times ahead?
For decades the scientific community assumed that logic and reason will inevitably lead to a logical and reasonable response. This has not been the case in the 50 years that industrialised nations have known about the risks of climate change whilst increasing their carbon footprint. The failure to acknowledge the complexity of the human response has come at a high cost. There is clearly a discrepancy between logical thinking and the fallible human response to threat.
I argue that efforts to meet the challenges of climate change need to go beyond a mere reduction in CO2 emissions. They require the maturing of the collective culture into a much larger capacity to process painful experiences whilst holding the interconnected, non-linear complexity of life. This includes the ability to acknowledge fragility, to bear the unbearable with dignity and to bring integration into the frozen and fragmented states of collective trauma.
Psychological analyses of the climate crisis have diagnosed a state of melancholia (Lertzman, 2015), resistance, disavowal (Weintrobe, 2013) and denial in western culture. I argue that we also need to look through a collective trauma lens in order to understand the level of dissociation and inaction that we continue to witness. This is not as an alternative to other theories, but in multi-layered addition to them.
I propose that the phenomenon of personal and cultural fragmentation, explored here through the lenses of brain hemisphere balance, collective trauma and the Jungian (1985) concept of necessary suffering, are relevant perspectives towards adaptation to a changing environment. I suggest that there is a need for collective ways to reclaim fragmented parts, bridge existing polarities and meet the challenges ahead with maturity.
Covid-19 is unlikely to be the last new challenge we encounter. We are set for disruptive levels of global warming and may already have passed an irreversible tipping point (IPCC, 2018). No place on Earth will be spared the consequences, but those who already suffer from social inequality, poverty and marginalisation will be disproportionally affected. Climate injustice and the competition over sparser resources are likely to widen the social gaps that already exist. Social unrest and mass migration are likely to increase (The World Bank, 2018).
Warmer climates will most likely increase health risks through the introduction of new diseases into areas whose communities are not sufficiently adapted (Centric Lab, 2019). In order to avoid catastrophic runaway climate change, Western industrial nations will have to dramatically change their way of life. No nation is currently on course to meet the target of CO2 emissions needed to keep global heating to the minimum of 1.5 C, set out in the Paris agreement. In fact global emissions are rising rather than decreasing. Once the seriousness and scale of the problem sinks into public awareness, the risk of a global mental health crisis is high. How do we meet the enormity of the times ahead?
For decades the scientific community assumed that logic and reason will inevitably lead to a logical and reasonable response. This has not been the case in the 50 years that industrialised nations have known about the risks of climate change whilst increasing their carbon footprint. The failure to acknowledge the complexity of the human response has come at a high cost. There is clearly a discrepancy between logical thinking and the fallible human response to threat.
I argue that efforts to meet the challenges of climate change need to go beyond a mere reduction in CO2 emissions. They require the maturing of the collective culture into a much larger capacity to process painful experiences whilst holding the interconnected, non-linear complexity of life. This includes the ability to acknowledge fragility, to bear the unbearable with dignity and to bring integration into the frozen and fragmented states of collective trauma.
Psychological analyses of the climate crisis have diagnosed a state of melancholia (Lertzman, 2015), resistance, disavowal (Weintrobe, 2013) and denial in western culture. I argue that we also need to look through a collective trauma lens in order to understand the level of dissociation and inaction that we continue to witness. This is not as an alternative to other theories, but in multi-layered addition to them.
I propose that the phenomenon of personal and cultural fragmentation, explored here through the lenses of brain hemisphere balance, collective trauma and the Jungian (1985) concept of necessary suffering, are relevant perspectives towards adaptation to a changing environment. I suggest that there is a need for collective ways to reclaim fragmented parts, bridge existing polarities and meet the challenges ahead with maturity.
Divided stories
In order to understand the lack of mobilisation in the face of danger, it may be useful to take a closer look at the narratives that inform dominant Western values. The structures within which we live require a certain disposition in the general population. Capitalism in its neo-liberal form has become hegemonic in Western culture. It has become a way of life that manifests in day to day experience. In the global North, Capitalism has become part of our relationships to each other, ourselves and the environment we depend upon. It has traded the idea of community for individualism, prioritises profit over its consequences and relies on unequal distribution of resources.
The Capitalist Institute (Confino, 2015) reports a direct link between the capitalist worldview and global challenges, such as climate change and political instability and recommends that an urgent shift towards systems based values is needed. This has enormous consequences, as the capitalist ideals are woven into the fabric of Western culture. Many psychological theories reflect the capitalist values of individualism, materialism, anthropocentrism, competition and progress and the concept of mental health itself can be regarded as the capacity to function symptom free within a capitalist system (Bednarek, 2018).
The Capitalist Institute (Confino, 2015) reports a direct link between the capitalist worldview and global challenges, such as climate change and political instability and recommends that an urgent shift towards systems based values is needed. This has enormous consequences, as the capitalist ideals are woven into the fabric of Western culture. Many psychological theories reflect the capitalist values of individualism, materialism, anthropocentrism, competition and progress and the concept of mental health itself can be regarded as the capacity to function symptom free within a capitalist system (Bednarek, 2018).
Many psychological theories reflect the capitalist values of individualism, materialism, anthropocentrism, competition and progress and the concept of mental health itself can be regarded as the capacity to function symptom free within a capitalist system.
Capra (1982) points out that the dysfunction of complex systems on the world stage is primarily a crisis of perception, where seemingly innocent collective everyday beliefs contribute to the stuckness of much larger, complex systems, and where the stories we tell about the world and ourselves, serve as the connective tissue that holds things in their rigid place. Capra and Luisi (2014) stress that many solutions to global problems come from the same linear thinking that created them, whereas nature is highly non-linear, acting in feedback-loops and forming and re-forming wholes.
The philosopher Zygmunt Bauman (2000) writes about Western culture as being in a state
of ‘liquid modernity– ’ a state that is characterised by chaotic, ungovernable situations, where a reductionist focus on one specific problem in isolation is no longer adequate. The major problems of our time are complex, interconnected and systemic and need systemic and interconnected solutions that view life in terms of relationships.
The exponential growth of the technological and virtual aspects of life move in the opposite direction. The project to eradicate vulnerability and mortality from human experience is not a mere fiction anymore. Artificial intelligence research talks about the development of the ‘transhuman’ or ‘posthuman’ generation, in which people are no longer dependent on their environment and are ‘enhanced’ by technology and, as Steven Dick (2006) from NASA put it, where ‘the majority of intelligent life has evolved beyond flesh and blood intelligence’ (Dick, 2006). This suggests a vision for humanity in which fragility is engineered out of existence. Life is measured in years, not in connection, relationships and soulful engagement.
This positivist outlook, relies purely on reason, analysis and linear thinking. In an effort to understand the world, things are divided into their component parts. From this perspective, the world is inert, measurable and controllable, can be understood through intellectual engagement and acted upon in a mechanistic fashion.
A holistic view sees the world in flux and values the embodied, sensual, spiritual, poetic and relational aspects of life. This perspective allows multiplicities and contradictions, includes the terrain of soul or psyche (Hillman 1995), which ascribes meaning to adversity and sees the world as an interconnected living system of ecological interdependencies (Bateson, 1972; Capra and Luisi, 2014).
The philosopher Zygmunt Bauman (2000) writes about Western culture as being in a state
of ‘liquid modernity– ’ a state that is characterised by chaotic, ungovernable situations, where a reductionist focus on one specific problem in isolation is no longer adequate. The major problems of our time are complex, interconnected and systemic and need systemic and interconnected solutions that view life in terms of relationships.
The exponential growth of the technological and virtual aspects of life move in the opposite direction. The project to eradicate vulnerability and mortality from human experience is not a mere fiction anymore. Artificial intelligence research talks about the development of the ‘transhuman’ or ‘posthuman’ generation, in which people are no longer dependent on their environment and are ‘enhanced’ by technology and, as Steven Dick (2006) from NASA put it, where ‘the majority of intelligent life has evolved beyond flesh and blood intelligence’ (Dick, 2006). This suggests a vision for humanity in which fragility is engineered out of existence. Life is measured in years, not in connection, relationships and soulful engagement.
This positivist outlook, relies purely on reason, analysis and linear thinking. In an effort to understand the world, things are divided into their component parts. From this perspective, the world is inert, measurable and controllable, can be understood through intellectual engagement and acted upon in a mechanistic fashion.
A holistic view sees the world in flux and values the embodied, sensual, spiritual, poetic and relational aspects of life. This perspective allows multiplicities and contradictions, includes the terrain of soul or psyche (Hillman 1995), which ascribes meaning to adversity and sees the world as an interconnected living system of ecological interdependencies (Bateson, 1972; Capra and Luisi, 2014).
The philosopher Zygmunt Bauman writes about Western culture as being in a state of "liquid modernity" — a state that is characterised by chaotic, ungovernable situations, where a reductionist focus on one specific problem in isolation is no longer adequate.
Depending on where one’s affiliations lie, personal ethics, values, actions and solutions to individual and global problems will look dramatically different. From the positivist perspective, climate change can be assimilated in terms of facts and figures. Solutions are likely to be practical and technical and communication relies on sharing of information. A soulful perspective on the other hand calls for an aesthetic engagement, a changed relationship to the Earth and each other, one where we become involved, entangled and accountable.
Relational and mechanistic outlooks can either be viewed as mutually exclusive or as being linked on a spectrum that connects one to the other. Bateson (1972) suggests that we need to move fluidly between these polarities, zooming into the narrowly focussed, targeted attention, then zooming out again to the interconnected relationships of the whole. This fluidity requires connection between the two brain hemispheres that govern these two types of attention. The brain’s divided structure can easily loose the connection between the hemispheres and fragment into fixed, compartmentalised positions. This is frequently the case in trauma responses, as I will explore later. Without the ability to shift perspective, there is a risk of ‘othering’ those that don’t meet one’s worldview, treating them as adversaries. This polarisation into fixed positions seems to be on the increase at a time when we need an ability to change, to work collectively and to think creatively.
In the following I will discuss the phenomenon of fragmentation and compartmentalisation from the perspective of brain hemisphere balance and collective trauma.
Relational and mechanistic outlooks can either be viewed as mutually exclusive or as being linked on a spectrum that connects one to the other. Bateson (1972) suggests that we need to move fluidly between these polarities, zooming into the narrowly focussed, targeted attention, then zooming out again to the interconnected relationships of the whole. This fluidity requires connection between the two brain hemispheres that govern these two types of attention. The brain’s divided structure can easily loose the connection between the hemispheres and fragment into fixed, compartmentalised positions. This is frequently the case in trauma responses, as I will explore later. Without the ability to shift perspective, there is a risk of ‘othering’ those that don’t meet one’s worldview, treating them as adversaries. This polarisation into fixed positions seems to be on the increase at a time when we need an ability to change, to work collectively and to think creatively.
In the following I will discuss the phenomenon of fragmentation and compartmentalisation from the perspective of brain hemisphere balance and collective trauma.
Polarisation into fixed positions seems to be on the increase at a time when we need an ability to change, to work collectively and to think creatively.
The divided brain
Each of the two brain hemispheres has important aspects to offer. The left hemisphere deals in abstractions and categories on which predictions can be based. It perceives things as fixed and known. This kind of attention enables us to examine, analyse, decontextualise and generalise. It gives us control and power over a world that is seen as dead matter. The right hemisphere on the other hand is relational in nature, able to understand implicit meaning and applies contextual thinking. It relates in an aesthetic and embodied way to the world and sees life in complex, changing, evolving, interconnected perspectives.
The psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist (2010a) illustrates how the brain function is intrinsically linked to the dominant norms and values of society. McGilchrist (2010b) points out that in the history of Western culture, there was fluctuation between times of hemisphere equilibrium and periods of left hemisphere dominance. The Enlightenment in the 17th century, paved the way for the Industrial Revolution. From that point onwards he sees a shift into left hemisphere domination, intensified over time with only a brief attempt to rebalance the equilibrium during the Renaissance.
He describes a hypothetical culture in which the left hemisphere has won absolute control and power over the perception of reality. This culture is one where the living world is objectified and used at will. Narrow focused attention leads to an increase in specialisation, technicalisation and bureaucratisation. Knowledge is more and more abstracted from experience. Holistic thinking is suspect. The world becomes more virtualised and modelled on mechanical ideals. The impersonal replaces the personal and the focus on material things increases. Relationships are qualified by exploitation rather than co-operation. Governments become preoccupied with security, surveillance and control. Compassion is replaced by rationality. Religion and a sense of wonder seem illogical and suspect. There is a difficulty in understanding non-explicit meaning and a marked desire for literalness prevails. A utilitarian approach to life dominates mainstream thinking and culture (McGilchrist 2010b, p.70-71).
This largely describes the world we currently live in, where the gifts of the right hemisphere have become silenced and denigrated. The cost to the living world is evident in the predicament of our times. The solution is not a shift to right brain dominance. Both hemispheres, with their distinctive versions of the world, have an important role to play, but their current relationship is far from symmetrical. McGilchrist points out that “the trouble is that the left hemisphere’s far simpler world is self-consistent, because all the complexity has been sheared off, — and this makes the left hemisphere prone to believe it knows everything, when it absolutely does not: it remains ignorant of all that is most important.” (McGilchrist, 2010b, p.68)
The psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist (2010a) illustrates how the brain function is intrinsically linked to the dominant norms and values of society. McGilchrist (2010b) points out that in the history of Western culture, there was fluctuation between times of hemisphere equilibrium and periods of left hemisphere dominance. The Enlightenment in the 17th century, paved the way for the Industrial Revolution. From that point onwards he sees a shift into left hemisphere domination, intensified over time with only a brief attempt to rebalance the equilibrium during the Renaissance.
He describes a hypothetical culture in which the left hemisphere has won absolute control and power over the perception of reality. This culture is one where the living world is objectified and used at will. Narrow focused attention leads to an increase in specialisation, technicalisation and bureaucratisation. Knowledge is more and more abstracted from experience. Holistic thinking is suspect. The world becomes more virtualised and modelled on mechanical ideals. The impersonal replaces the personal and the focus on material things increases. Relationships are qualified by exploitation rather than co-operation. Governments become preoccupied with security, surveillance and control. Compassion is replaced by rationality. Religion and a sense of wonder seem illogical and suspect. There is a difficulty in understanding non-explicit meaning and a marked desire for literalness prevails. A utilitarian approach to life dominates mainstream thinking and culture (McGilchrist 2010b, p.70-71).
This largely describes the world we currently live in, where the gifts of the right hemisphere have become silenced and denigrated. The cost to the living world is evident in the predicament of our times. The solution is not a shift to right brain dominance. Both hemispheres, with their distinctive versions of the world, have an important role to play, but their current relationship is far from symmetrical. McGilchrist points out that “the trouble is that the left hemisphere’s far simpler world is self-consistent, because all the complexity has been sheared off, — and this makes the left hemisphere prone to believe it knows everything, when it absolutely does not: it remains ignorant of all that is most important.” (McGilchrist, 2010b, p.68)
The trouble is that the left hemisphere’s far simpler world is self-consistent, because all the complexity has been sheared off, — and this makes the left hemisphere prone to believe it knows everything, when it absolutely does not: it remains ignorant of all that is most important.
We have witnessed the danger of extreme compartmentalisation in the banal seeming administration and bureaucratisation of the Holocaust. Sereny’s (1974) interviews with prominent Nazi leaders concludes that it was systematic compartmentalisation which allowed individuals to carry out genocide and still live with themselves. The Holocaust was orchestrated through bureaucracy, task division and carefully abstracted language, where people became ‘cargo’ and genocide was ‘a solution of the Jewish Question’. The function of the right hemisphere was systematically excluded. This extreme compartmentalisation allowed ordinary human beings, not monsters, to carry out monstrous acts as part of a day’s work. The horrific became normalised through small steps into the unthinkable.
Gretton (2019) compares the psychological desensitisation and fragmentation processes that enabled the Holocaust with contemporary contexts, suggesting that similar dynamics may be at work in corporate executives, who carry out systematic ecocide (Higgins, 2010) and are prepared to let people and ecosystems die if it increases profit margins. These ‘desk killers’ as Gretton (2019) calls them, transgress the outward values of democratic societies from office desks with calculators and statistics instead of guns. Gretton shows that much like Nazi officials, these individuals do their job in a system that allows them to blank out the costs of their decisions through a myopic focus on tasks and growth charts. The system promotes the fragmentation of the mind and protects its beneficiaries. To a greater or lesser extent we are all part of this ‘banality of evil’ (Arendt 2006) that by now affects all life on Earth.
Gretton (2019) compares the psychological desensitisation and fragmentation processes that enabled the Holocaust with contemporary contexts, suggesting that similar dynamics may be at work in corporate executives, who carry out systematic ecocide (Higgins, 2010) and are prepared to let people and ecosystems die if it increases profit margins. These ‘desk killers’ as Gretton (2019) calls them, transgress the outward values of democratic societies from office desks with calculators and statistics instead of guns. Gretton shows that much like Nazi officials, these individuals do their job in a system that allows them to blank out the costs of their decisions through a myopic focus on tasks and growth charts. The system promotes the fragmentation of the mind and protects its beneficiaries. To a greater or lesser extent we are all part of this ‘banality of evil’ (Arendt 2006) that by now affects all life on Earth.
Gretton compares the psychological desensitisation and fragmentation processes that enabled the Holocaust with contemporary contexts, suggesting that similar dynamics may be at work in corporate executives, who carry out systematic ecocide and are prepared to let people and ecosystems die if it increases profit margins.
Most people are concerned about climate change and want their children to have a safe future. Through a process that Weintrobe (2013) calls disavowal, cognitive knowledge is kept separate from felt experience, with the result that there is little experience of urgency. Compartmentalisation maintains an emotional equilibrium. The seeming ‘normality’ of everyday life has a barely hidden malignancy to it. Desensitisation and fragmentation shield the psyche from overwhelm, but inhibit mobilisation in the face of unprecedented danger.
In order to stop the left brain dominant culture from the destruction of the basis of life, McGilchrist (2010b) calls for a greater emphasis on right brain attributes in all aspects of culture and society — for only the right hemisphere knows that both sides are needed (p.71).
The endeavour to reintroduce relational and systemic values into every part of society would mean an engagement with the paradoxical aspects of life that don’t fit into linear thinking, the ability to acknowledge uncertainty, chaotic networks of relationships, living systems thinking, embodied practice and other strategies that are suspiciously viewed as unscientific. It would mean a willingness to travel into the wilderness of everything that we have ‘othered’ and allowing it to unravel the reductive story we have told about the human condition and the world. We may need to pay attention to the exiled parts in our inner and outer world and make an effort to notice the unseen, that which has been part of our story all along but that we haven’t been trained to notice.
I believe that the mental health professions have an important part to play in supporting this shift. In order to do so, it is important to investigate where the mental health professions perpetuate a fragmented left hemisphere dominant culture themselves and where they collude with a paradigm that upholds an exploitative relationship with the living world.
In order to stop the left brain dominant culture from the destruction of the basis of life, McGilchrist (2010b) calls for a greater emphasis on right brain attributes in all aspects of culture and society — for only the right hemisphere knows that both sides are needed (p.71).
The endeavour to reintroduce relational and systemic values into every part of society would mean an engagement with the paradoxical aspects of life that don’t fit into linear thinking, the ability to acknowledge uncertainty, chaotic networks of relationships, living systems thinking, embodied practice and other strategies that are suspiciously viewed as unscientific. It would mean a willingness to travel into the wilderness of everything that we have ‘othered’ and allowing it to unravel the reductive story we have told about the human condition and the world. We may need to pay attention to the exiled parts in our inner and outer world and make an effort to notice the unseen, that which has been part of our story all along but that we haven’t been trained to notice.
I believe that the mental health professions have an important part to play in supporting this shift. In order to do so, it is important to investigate where the mental health professions perpetuate a fragmented left hemisphere dominant culture themselves and where they collude with a paradigm that upholds an exploitative relationship with the living world.
The mental health professions have an important part to play in supporting this shift. In order to do so, it is important to investigate where the mental health professions perpetuate a fragmented left hemisphere dominant culture themselves and where they collude with a paradigm that upholds an exploitative relationship with the living world.
Climate change on the background of collective, intergenerational trauma
I suggest here, that pockets of Western culture are built on layers of unprocessed collective trauma and that the resulting fragmentation within society has had detrimental effects on its ability to respond to the climate emergency.
Little attention has been paid to the cultural and personal impoverishment that may ensue from the loss of reciprocal connection with the living world. Glendenning (1994) calls this tear between humans and the environment ‘original trauma’ (p.57) and suggests that accumulated suffering over generations contributed to the experience of feeling exiled from one’s own humanity. She describes how isolation from the world resulted in numbing and a pervasive sense of not belonging, which has been completely normalised in Western society. She says: “I maintain that a traumatised state is not merely the domain of the Vietnam veteran or the survivor of childhood abuse: it is the underlying condition of the domesticated psyche”. (p.XIII)
We only have to go back 8-10 generations to find relatives in the lineages of contemporary white Europeans, who experienced the breakage in the connection to nature, to the cycles of the seasons and traditions that provided communal containers for collective experiences. The inheritance of the last century has added unspeakable atrocities to an already traumatised field with the mass killings of World War I, the inhumanity of the Holocaust, the terror and barbarism of the Second World War, the use of nuclear bombs on people and places, the brutality committed in the name of Empire, the cold war, the violation and raping of millions of women, the degradation of human dignity through slavery and institutional racism, the continued suffering caused by genocides, ecocides, wars and natural disasters, the oppression of people and ecosystems in the name of progress and profit, violence committed on the basis of gender, class, race or an idea of supremacy over the natural world. How do we attend to the effects of this much collective suffering?
And the degradation of life is ongoing in a world that faces mass extinctions whilst keeping the machinery of capitalism going at full speed. Many people work long hours in meaningless or underpaid jobs, producing and consuming goods and services that nobody really needs. Surely humans are not meant to live for weekends and occasional holidays, raise their hands quietly to be allowed to speak, sit indoors on a summer’s day and drown out the beauty of the world with neon lights. There is a deadening in this much soullessness. Weller (2015) speaks of a chronically anaethethised society, where the split from soulful living has become normalised. Could this ‘malignant normality’ (Bednarek, 2019) be the symptom of a wounded world? If we consider the possibility of a culture, or society as having a collective psyche, as Jung (1995) suggested, many symptoms are then not an individual’s dysfunction but a sign of a suffering culture.
Little attention has been paid to the cultural and personal impoverishment that may ensue from the loss of reciprocal connection with the living world. Glendenning (1994) calls this tear between humans and the environment ‘original trauma’ (p.57) and suggests that accumulated suffering over generations contributed to the experience of feeling exiled from one’s own humanity. She describes how isolation from the world resulted in numbing and a pervasive sense of not belonging, which has been completely normalised in Western society. She says: “I maintain that a traumatised state is not merely the domain of the Vietnam veteran or the survivor of childhood abuse: it is the underlying condition of the domesticated psyche”. (p.XIII)
We only have to go back 8-10 generations to find relatives in the lineages of contemporary white Europeans, who experienced the breakage in the connection to nature, to the cycles of the seasons and traditions that provided communal containers for collective experiences. The inheritance of the last century has added unspeakable atrocities to an already traumatised field with the mass killings of World War I, the inhumanity of the Holocaust, the terror and barbarism of the Second World War, the use of nuclear bombs on people and places, the brutality committed in the name of Empire, the cold war, the violation and raping of millions of women, the degradation of human dignity through slavery and institutional racism, the continued suffering caused by genocides, ecocides, wars and natural disasters, the oppression of people and ecosystems in the name of progress and profit, violence committed on the basis of gender, class, race or an idea of supremacy over the natural world. How do we attend to the effects of this much collective suffering?
And the degradation of life is ongoing in a world that faces mass extinctions whilst keeping the machinery of capitalism going at full speed. Many people work long hours in meaningless or underpaid jobs, producing and consuming goods and services that nobody really needs. Surely humans are not meant to live for weekends and occasional holidays, raise their hands quietly to be allowed to speak, sit indoors on a summer’s day and drown out the beauty of the world with neon lights. There is a deadening in this much soullessness. Weller (2015) speaks of a chronically anaethethised society, where the split from soulful living has become normalised. Could this ‘malignant normality’ (Bednarek, 2019) be the symptom of a wounded world? If we consider the possibility of a culture, or society as having a collective psyche, as Jung (1995) suggested, many symptoms are then not an individual’s dysfunction but a sign of a suffering culture.
We only have to go back 8-10 generations to find relatives in the lineages of contemporary white Europeans, who experienced the breakage in the connection to nature, to the cycles of the seasons and traditions that provided communal containers for collective experiences
In general, a trauma response is an adaptation to overwhelming experiences without recourse to sufficient support (Rothchild, 200; Van der Kolk 2014). Without adequate external and internal support structures, traumatic experiences can’t be assimilated and are split off in an attempt to numb the wounded part and protect survival (Fischer, 2017). Protection from traumatic overwhelm can appear in the form of deflection, denial, rationalisation, fragmentation, dissociation or numbing (Forner, 2017).
Epigenetic research shows that external and environmental factors are passed down the generations through genomes. Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance of stress, trauma and fear have been shown to reverberate across multiple generations even in animals and even without the presence of the original stimulus (Berger et al, 2009; Short et.al 2016).
If societal trauma stays unresolved, the following generations are born into a trauma field that can rarely be named. It is simply experienced as ‘normal’. Without the cultural means to digest collective trauma, any new experience that falls on an already traumatised ground cannot be integrated. The threat of climate change and the current collective trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic are therefore likely to sit on top of all other categories of unresolved personal, cultural, and intergenerational trauma in the collective field. In this ‘traumasphere’ (Woodbury 2019), our innate abilities to respond to obvious dangers are inhibited.
Epigenetic research shows that external and environmental factors are passed down the generations through genomes. Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance of stress, trauma and fear have been shown to reverberate across multiple generations even in animals and even without the presence of the original stimulus (Berger et al, 2009; Short et.al 2016).
If societal trauma stays unresolved, the following generations are born into a trauma field that can rarely be named. It is simply experienced as ‘normal’. Without the cultural means to digest collective trauma, any new experience that falls on an already traumatised ground cannot be integrated. The threat of climate change and the current collective trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic are therefore likely to sit on top of all other categories of unresolved personal, cultural, and intergenerational trauma in the collective field. In this ‘traumasphere’ (Woodbury 2019), our innate abilities to respond to obvious dangers are inhibited.
Humans are not meant to live for weekends and occasional holidays, raise their hands quietly to be allowed to speak, sit indoors on a summer’s day and drown out the beauty of the world with neon lights. There is a deadening in this much soullessness. Weller speaks of a chronically anaethethised society, where the split from soulful living has become normalised.
The trauma theory of structural dissociation (Van der Hart, Nijenhuis & Steele, 2006) describes how the brain’s structure of specialised hemispheres facilitates disconnection in times of overwhelm, allowing the left brain to take over control and perform the tasks of daily life. The left brain hemisphere is able to stay focussed, remain positive and function in a logical, task-oriented way, whilst much of the function of the right hemisphere is suppressed, remaining in survival mode, braced for danger or frozen with fear (Fischer, 2017). The functions of the fragmented parts are often disowned and experienced as ‘not me’. This compartmentalisation allows people to be informed about climate change whilst staying emotionally undisturbed and unresponsive. The more reality is systematically fragmented in this way, the more anxiety builds up unconsciously and the need for further distortion increases.
In a traumatised culture, only a certain aspect of society is free to develop, whereas parts of the culture remain frozen, fragmented or hyper-activated and reactive (Huebl, 2019). The fight-flight-freeze response is a neurological reaction that leads to hormonal and physiological changes in the face of threat. Post traumatic trauma occurs when heightened stress and fear become chronic (Levine, 1997). Life is lived on high alert in constant survival mode. The flight response is linked to anxiety, panic and hypervigilance, the freeze response shows in numbing and dissociation and the fight response can lead to increased aggression, violence and reactivity. On a collective level different pockets of society will have different coping strategies depending on their resilience and support levels, but a chronically traumatised community is more likely to be reactive rather than responsive.
Defense mechanisms provide protection from overwhelm and are therefore relatively stable and immune to change. Traumatised individuals or collectives are often unable to change their responses according to rational will, even if this lack of response leads to greater suffering (Van der Kolk, 2014; Levine 1997). Chronic trauma cannot be resolved with logic, pressure, demands, advice or pleas. It is therefore highly unlikely that climate information and statistics can mobilise the frozen or irrational parts of society. Only if we apply a trauma lens, can we see that what looks like a lack of care, may in fact be an unconscious adjustment to chronic overwhelm.
Trauma is a relational and contextual response. If the defensive compartmentalisation collapses without adequate support to assimilate this loss of protection, there is a risk of emotional dysregulation and hyper-activation, where the higher functions of consciousness are no longer fully available. Anger, aggression and illogical reactivity can erupt in an attempt to restore the status quo. Alternatively, dissociation and numbing or anxiety and panic are likely to increase. I suggest that these responses can be expected in individuals and different pockets of society if defence mechanisms collapse without sufficient psychological resilience and support.
Trauma therapy suggests to validate the adjustments that were necessary for psychological survival in the absence of adequate support, however dysfunctional they may have become over time (Van der Kolk, 2014; Fischer, 2017; Ogden and Fischer, 2015). It is not cognition, but relationship, community and a reconnection with safe belonging that brings healing. I therefore suggest that collective forms of trauma informed support are needed in order to increase psychological resilience in the population. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss how this may look in practice, but I will make some general suggestions below.
In a traumatised culture, only a certain aspect of society is free to develop, whereas parts of the culture remain frozen, fragmented or hyper-activated and reactive (Huebl, 2019). The fight-flight-freeze response is a neurological reaction that leads to hormonal and physiological changes in the face of threat. Post traumatic trauma occurs when heightened stress and fear become chronic (Levine, 1997). Life is lived on high alert in constant survival mode. The flight response is linked to anxiety, panic and hypervigilance, the freeze response shows in numbing and dissociation and the fight response can lead to increased aggression, violence and reactivity. On a collective level different pockets of society will have different coping strategies depending on their resilience and support levels, but a chronically traumatised community is more likely to be reactive rather than responsive.
Defense mechanisms provide protection from overwhelm and are therefore relatively stable and immune to change. Traumatised individuals or collectives are often unable to change their responses according to rational will, even if this lack of response leads to greater suffering (Van der Kolk, 2014; Levine 1997). Chronic trauma cannot be resolved with logic, pressure, demands, advice or pleas. It is therefore highly unlikely that climate information and statistics can mobilise the frozen or irrational parts of society. Only if we apply a trauma lens, can we see that what looks like a lack of care, may in fact be an unconscious adjustment to chronic overwhelm.
Trauma is a relational and contextual response. If the defensive compartmentalisation collapses without adequate support to assimilate this loss of protection, there is a risk of emotional dysregulation and hyper-activation, where the higher functions of consciousness are no longer fully available. Anger, aggression and illogical reactivity can erupt in an attempt to restore the status quo. Alternatively, dissociation and numbing or anxiety and panic are likely to increase. I suggest that these responses can be expected in individuals and different pockets of society if defence mechanisms collapse without sufficient psychological resilience and support.
Trauma therapy suggests to validate the adjustments that were necessary for psychological survival in the absence of adequate support, however dysfunctional they may have become over time (Van der Kolk, 2014; Fischer, 2017; Ogden and Fischer, 2015). It is not cognition, but relationship, community and a reconnection with safe belonging that brings healing. I therefore suggest that collective forms of trauma informed support are needed in order to increase psychological resilience in the population. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss how this may look in practice, but I will make some general suggestions below.
Brain’s structure of specialised hemispheres facilitates disconnection in times of overwhelm, allowing the left brain to take over control and perform the tasks of daily life. The left brain hemisphere is able to stay focussed, remain positive and function in a logical, task-oriented way, whilst much of the function of the right hemisphere is suppressed, remaining in survival mode, braced for danger or frozen with fear. The functions of the fragmented parts are often disowned and experienced as ‘not me’. This compartmentalisation allows people to be informed about climate change whilst staying emotionally undisturbed and unresponsive.
There is an emotional range within which most people can contain intense emotions without either dissociating and numbing at one end of the spectrum or going into blind panic and reactivity on the other. Trauma therapy aims to widen this ‘window of tolerance’ (Siegel, 1999), supporting the ability to reintegrate fragmented parts and to bear difficult emotions whilst staying connected and grounded.
Collective trauma inevitably manifests in many people’s individual lives, but collective patterns of wounding and dissociation are hard to identify without theories that allow a wider perspective. In line with the dominant individualistic paradigm, most psychological theories look through the lens of a personalised psychology, often attributing mental health symptoms to a dysfunction in an individual’s own personality or parental upbringing (Bednarek, 2018). Only if we extend the lens beyond isolated events or a focus on parental shortcomings (often decontextualised from their own psycho-social situation), can we see a larger picture of intergenerational and collective traumatisation; a web that we have been born into. I suggest that a psycho-social lens is needed to account for the extent of collective suffering, expressed through individual lives.
It is beyond the capacity of most people to process collective trauma on their own. Collective trauma needs a collective container for collective healing, but most communal traditions have been lost or neglected. There is no doubt that individual support is beneficial and, at times a larger perspective is needed to mend collectively what has been torn. Maybe we can put a larger container alongside individual support and take part in rebuilding communal support structures, which acknowledge interconnectivity and move beyond the story of a separate Self.
John E. Mack (1995), a professor of psychiatry at Harvard, calls for an expanded psychology of relationship, which includes the natural world. Mack doesn’t believe that a mere threat to survival will be enough to create this new relationship without a fundamental revolution in western consciousness. He suggests for psychology to ‘reinfuse (itself) with the imprecise notions of spirituality and philosophy, from which it has so vigorously and proudly struggled to free itself in an effort to be granted scientific status’ (Mack, 1995, p.284). Values that transcend individualism are needed to stop industrialised nations from milking the world dry, asking instead what the current situation is calling for and finding the strength and the resilience to rise to it.
Collective trauma inevitably manifests in many people’s individual lives, but collective patterns of wounding and dissociation are hard to identify without theories that allow a wider perspective. In line with the dominant individualistic paradigm, most psychological theories look through the lens of a personalised psychology, often attributing mental health symptoms to a dysfunction in an individual’s own personality or parental upbringing (Bednarek, 2018). Only if we extend the lens beyond isolated events or a focus on parental shortcomings (often decontextualised from their own psycho-social situation), can we see a larger picture of intergenerational and collective traumatisation; a web that we have been born into. I suggest that a psycho-social lens is needed to account for the extent of collective suffering, expressed through individual lives.
It is beyond the capacity of most people to process collective trauma on their own. Collective trauma needs a collective container for collective healing, but most communal traditions have been lost or neglected. There is no doubt that individual support is beneficial and, at times a larger perspective is needed to mend collectively what has been torn. Maybe we can put a larger container alongside individual support and take part in rebuilding communal support structures, which acknowledge interconnectivity and move beyond the story of a separate Self.
John E. Mack (1995), a professor of psychiatry at Harvard, calls for an expanded psychology of relationship, which includes the natural world. Mack doesn’t believe that a mere threat to survival will be enough to create this new relationship without a fundamental revolution in western consciousness. He suggests for psychology to ‘reinfuse (itself) with the imprecise notions of spirituality and philosophy, from which it has so vigorously and proudly struggled to free itself in an effort to be granted scientific status’ (Mack, 1995, p.284). Values that transcend individualism are needed to stop industrialised nations from milking the world dry, asking instead what the current situation is calling for and finding the strength and the resilience to rise to it.
It is beyond the capacity of most people to process collective trauma on their own. Collective trauma needs a collective container for collective healing, but most communal traditions have been lost or neglected. There is no doubt that individual support is beneficial and, at times a larger perspective is needed to mend collectively what has been torn. Maybe we can put a larger container alongside individual support and take part in rebuilding communal support structures, which acknowledge interconnectivity and move beyond the story of a separate Self.
The research of the German ethnopsychologist Juergen Kremer (1998) revolves around what he calls ‘recovery of indigenous mind’, which for him does not relate to adopting knowledge and customs from other cultures, but describes a painful process of remembering the collective stories of one’s own lineage in order to go forward. He suggests that the path into a sustainable future needs to move through the historical wounds suffered and perpetrated by oneself as well as one’s ancestors and what they passed down the generations. He stresses that we cannot leap out of our historical situation. We have to bear the discomfort of turning towards the unbearable and work our way through it in order to be free from its long shadows.
Once the fragmented, exiled and marginalised parts of an individual or a society are genuinely listened to, the stories of heartbreak are likely to reveal themselves. At that point, shame often emerges. Shame holds us to account for the rupture that our actions or non actions have caused (Erskine, 1994). The ability to stay with the discomfort is a necessary stage in the process of traumatic growth. Relationship, embodiment, community and belonging soothe the nervous system and promote re-connection with what has been ‘othered’ and marginalized.
I suggest that the integration of personally and culturally disowned parts is a necessary step towards climate action. After all, a culture that discovers what is alien to itself simultaneously discovers something about itself and its resources (McGrane 1989). I propose that in this endeavour it is paramount to include the more-than-human world (Abram, 1997) in the marginalised and suppressed aspects of society that need to be heard. Can we include rivers, forests, mountains, salmon and viruses in our idea of community? Rarely is the loss of attachment to nature discussed as a traumatic event, even though this is a loss that runs so deep that it has changed who we believe we are (Bednarek, 2018).
Integration work requires attunement to diverse perspectives, safe containers for social dialogues and the processing of collective experiences. Literal and metaphorical re-membering of what has been dis-membered is necessary in order to bridge the divides that have been created and face the times ahead with the resources, strengths and vitality that are not available in a fragmented state.
Once the fragmented, exiled and marginalised parts of an individual or a society are genuinely listened to, the stories of heartbreak are likely to reveal themselves. At that point, shame often emerges. Shame holds us to account for the rupture that our actions or non actions have caused (Erskine, 1994). The ability to stay with the discomfort is a necessary stage in the process of traumatic growth. Relationship, embodiment, community and belonging soothe the nervous system and promote re-connection with what has been ‘othered’ and marginalized.
I suggest that the integration of personally and culturally disowned parts is a necessary step towards climate action. After all, a culture that discovers what is alien to itself simultaneously discovers something about itself and its resources (McGrane 1989). I propose that in this endeavour it is paramount to include the more-than-human world (Abram, 1997) in the marginalised and suppressed aspects of society that need to be heard. Can we include rivers, forests, mountains, salmon and viruses in our idea of community? Rarely is the loss of attachment to nature discussed as a traumatic event, even though this is a loss that runs so deep that it has changed who we believe we are (Bednarek, 2018).
Integration work requires attunement to diverse perspectives, safe containers for social dialogues and the processing of collective experiences. Literal and metaphorical re-membering of what has been dis-membered is necessary in order to bridge the divides that have been created and face the times ahead with the resources, strengths and vitality that are not available in a fragmented state.
In this endeavour it is paramount to include the more-than-human world in the marginalised and suppressed aspects of society that need to be heard. Can we include rivers, forests, mountains, salmon and viruses in our idea of community?
Necessary suffering
In the following I explore the idea of a certain degree of pain being the price to pay for the passage from reactivity into mature response-ability, meaning the ability to respond maturely.
Nothing stays forever. At some point, our species can expect extinction. But surely there is a more dignified way to die than sleepwalking towards demise, whilst taking other cultures and ecosystems down with us.
With the dominant left brain lens, concepts of suicide often seek linear reasons to explain the death drive in our species, so that treatment, prevention and control can be worked out. The explanatory concepts range from masochism, self-destructive tendencies, confused thinking, internalised aggression and death wishes. If we apply a less linear reading of the fantasies and drives of a suicidal individual or culture, we open up the imaginal space of soul (Hillman, 1996) that demands that something or someone has to die metaphorically, not literally.
In many myths, a person who embarks on a journey into the unknown sustains a loss or a wound that changes them dramatically. In their suffering, they discover that there is a much deeper truth that underpins the appearances of their everyday life. The hero or heroine mature, then return home with a gift in service of their community (Campbell, 1949; Rohr, 2012). These myths point out that a maturational process entails ‘necessary suffering’, the loss of the Self or identity that was so carefully constructed in the first half of life. What has to die is a sense of grandiosity and the omnipotent illusion of control. Certainty has to die in order to make way to a much wider view.
Nothing stays forever. At some point, our species can expect extinction. But surely there is a more dignified way to die than sleepwalking towards demise, whilst taking other cultures and ecosystems down with us.
With the dominant left brain lens, concepts of suicide often seek linear reasons to explain the death drive in our species, so that treatment, prevention and control can be worked out. The explanatory concepts range from masochism, self-destructive tendencies, confused thinking, internalised aggression and death wishes. If we apply a less linear reading of the fantasies and drives of a suicidal individual or culture, we open up the imaginal space of soul (Hillman, 1996) that demands that something or someone has to die metaphorically, not literally.
In many myths, a person who embarks on a journey into the unknown sustains a loss or a wound that changes them dramatically. In their suffering, they discover that there is a much deeper truth that underpins the appearances of their everyday life. The hero or heroine mature, then return home with a gift in service of their community (Campbell, 1949; Rohr, 2012). These myths point out that a maturational process entails ‘necessary suffering’, the loss of the Self or identity that was so carefully constructed in the first half of life. What has to die is a sense of grandiosity and the omnipotent illusion of control. Certainty has to die in order to make way to a much wider view.
Maturational process entails ‘necessary suffering’, the loss of the Self or identity that was so carefully constructed in the first half of life. What has to die is a sense of grandiosity and the omnipotent illusion of control. Certainty has to die in order to make way to a much wider view.
“In the first half of life, the negative, the mysterious, the scary and the problematic are always exported elsewhere. Doing so gives (...) a quick and firm ego structure that works for a while. But such splitting is not an objective statement of truth! Eventually this overcompensation in one direction must be resolved and balanced (Rohr, 2012, p.148)”.
It was Jung (1995, p.340) who first talked about the two halves of life. Whilst he acknowledged the importance of a healthy ego structure as a strong container, he emphasised that the preoccupations of the ego need to eventually give way to the much deeper purpose of Soul. The ego needs to learn to be in service to the Soul’s calling, which cannot be satisfied with individualism and linearity. Soul speaks the language of longing, dreams and imagery and transcends the dualistic divide between ‘me’ and ‘not me’ (Hillman, 1996).
From that perspective what looks like dying, can largely be experienced as a falling into a vaster and deeper life, where the soul has found connection to a greater whole, a relationship with the limitless immensity of life. A certain level of pain and the ability to bear it can therefore be the vehicle that allows the crossing into maturity and the growing into abilities we never thought were possible.
The attempt to cheat life by excluding death, suffering and the intimacy of grief in the name of saving people from discomfort rarely ends well in mythological traditions. According to Jung (Jung & Jaffe, 1995) much unnecessary suffering is caused, because people will not accept the necessary suffering that comes from being human. Necessary suffering allows the heart to break open to the world. On the other side of heartbreak lies a matured and ripened soul – not in spite of the pain but because of it.
In Alchemy, this is the blackening Nigredo stage (Jung, 1980), a process of transformation, without which we can’t get to the essence of life. This alchemical stage of disintegration can only unfold if contained in a strong vessel. In other words the breaking down of structure needs psychological containment. Paradoxically, a maturational crisis requires individuals to master two opposing things: to provide a strong holding container so that there is no collapse into premature death or psychological breakdown and at the same time to allow rigid structures and values to crumble and dissolve.
A time of crisis comes with the responsibility to re-imagine habitual ways of doing things. If we dare to live with loss as an adviser instead of the enemy, heartbreak will travel with us each step of the way, but we also have the chance to develop the maturity to meet life with integrity, including the coming of death.
It was Jung (1995, p.340) who first talked about the two halves of life. Whilst he acknowledged the importance of a healthy ego structure as a strong container, he emphasised that the preoccupations of the ego need to eventually give way to the much deeper purpose of Soul. The ego needs to learn to be in service to the Soul’s calling, which cannot be satisfied with individualism and linearity. Soul speaks the language of longing, dreams and imagery and transcends the dualistic divide between ‘me’ and ‘not me’ (Hillman, 1996).
From that perspective what looks like dying, can largely be experienced as a falling into a vaster and deeper life, where the soul has found connection to a greater whole, a relationship with the limitless immensity of life. A certain level of pain and the ability to bear it can therefore be the vehicle that allows the crossing into maturity and the growing into abilities we never thought were possible.
The attempt to cheat life by excluding death, suffering and the intimacy of grief in the name of saving people from discomfort rarely ends well in mythological traditions. According to Jung (Jung & Jaffe, 1995) much unnecessary suffering is caused, because people will not accept the necessary suffering that comes from being human. Necessary suffering allows the heart to break open to the world. On the other side of heartbreak lies a matured and ripened soul – not in spite of the pain but because of it.
In Alchemy, this is the blackening Nigredo stage (Jung, 1980), a process of transformation, without which we can’t get to the essence of life. This alchemical stage of disintegration can only unfold if contained in a strong vessel. In other words the breaking down of structure needs psychological containment. Paradoxically, a maturational crisis requires individuals to master two opposing things: to provide a strong holding container so that there is no collapse into premature death or psychological breakdown and at the same time to allow rigid structures and values to crumble and dissolve.
A time of crisis comes with the responsibility to re-imagine habitual ways of doing things. If we dare to live with loss as an adviser instead of the enemy, heartbreak will travel with us each step of the way, but we also have the chance to develop the maturity to meet life with integrity, including the coming of death.
Necessary suffering allows the heart to break open to the world. On the other side of heartbreak lies a matured and ripened soul – not in spite of the pain but because of it.
Conclusion
In this article, I explored the role of individual and societal fragmentation and suggested that dominant left brain hemisphere functions as well as the effects of unprocessed collective trauma have had detrimental effects on the ability of Western societies to respond to the climate emergency.
I argued that climate action must go beyond a mere reduction in Co2 emissions and work towards a shift in values, perceptions and consciousness. A trauma informed lens points to an urgent need to soften polarised and compartmentalised defences and to integrate what has been pushed to the the margins of society. In order for rigid structures and values to dissolve without actual collapse, people need support in bearing uncomfortable truths.
At times fear and suffering over generations can be overwhelming and sections of society freeze into collective shock and trauma. If collective support can be brought into this contraction, many can move through despair into a wider perspective and reintegrate what has been split within themselves, their families, culture, between the generations and between humans and the living Earth. I recommend to critically examine where psychological theories and assumptions collude with aspects of the neo-liberal paradigm that is costing us the Earth and to consciously shift towards an interconnected, relational stance.
To quote Dorothy Dinnerstein (2020), “we may after all decide collectively what a suicidally-inclined adolescent, in a rage against parents, self and life might well decide, at the last minute, alone: that the furniture of our existence is too lovely to be junked, and our home too precious to be blown up, and that we ourselves as a species are far too young to die. We might decide that there's always time to die later.”
I argued that climate action must go beyond a mere reduction in Co2 emissions and work towards a shift in values, perceptions and consciousness. A trauma informed lens points to an urgent need to soften polarised and compartmentalised defences and to integrate what has been pushed to the the margins of society. In order for rigid structures and values to dissolve without actual collapse, people need support in bearing uncomfortable truths.
At times fear and suffering over generations can be overwhelming and sections of society freeze into collective shock and trauma. If collective support can be brought into this contraction, many can move through despair into a wider perspective and reintegrate what has been split within themselves, their families, culture, between the generations and between humans and the living Earth. I recommend to critically examine where psychological theories and assumptions collude with aspects of the neo-liberal paradigm that is costing us the Earth and to consciously shift towards an interconnected, relational stance.
To quote Dorothy Dinnerstein (2020), “we may after all decide collectively what a suicidally-inclined adolescent, in a rage against parents, self and life might well decide, at the last minute, alone: that the furniture of our existence is too lovely to be junked, and our home too precious to be blown up, and that we ourselves as a species are far too young to die. We might decide that there's always time to die later.”
Show bibliography
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natural world. British Gestalt Journal; 27(2): 8-17.
Bednarek, S. (2019) This is an emergency. Proposals for a collective response to the climate crisis. British Gestalt Journal; 28(2): 6-15.
Berger S, Kouzarides T, Shiekhattar R, Shilatifard A (2009). An operational definition of epigenetics. Genes & Development. 23 (7): 781-3.
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About Steffi Bednarek
Steffi Bednarek has a background in Gestalt psychotherapy, climate psychology and somatic trauma therapy and writes widely on climate change and psychology. She has been Head of Counselling and Mental Health in higher education and has worked as an international consultant for several Government Ministries, the Council of Europe and the World Health Organization. She is a member and partner of the Climate Psychology Alliance and leads climate grief work and incubation spaces for mental health professionals.
Illustrations (everything except the cover) by Peter Levich
