Climate change and ecological disruption are increasingly entering the therapy room through anxiety, grief, anger, helplessness, anticipatory loss, and despair about the future. Yet many counselors and social workers have received little or no formal training in recognizing or responding to climate-related distress.

Unlike many traditional clinical concerns, climate anxiety and ecological grief cannot always be understood through an individual pathology framework. Clients may be experiencing profound emotional distress in response to real, ongoing, and collective threats. Traditional approaches focused exclusively on symptom reduction, cognitive reframing, or identifying distorted thinking may unintentionally minimize or pathologize a client’s legitimate response to environmental change.

This experiential workshop introduces counselors and social workers to ecologically responsive approaches for understanding and addressing climate anxiety, ecological grief, and related forms of environmental distress.

Grounded in ecopsychology, nature-informed practice, and Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, participants will move through an embodied exploration of gratitude, grief, relational awareness, and meaningful action. Clinical discussion and application will help participants translate these experiences into ethical, practical interventions for individual and group practice.

This workshop invites participants to engage as both clinicians and human beings living within a changing world.