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Chapter 3 - Psychiatric Perspectives on Youth Climate Distress

Using the Biopsychosocio-environmental Knowledge Base to Understand and Assess for Clinical Level Symptoms

from Part I - Conceptual Foundations of Climate Distress in Young People

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2024

By
Elizabeth Haase
Edited by
Elizabeth Haase  and
Kelsey Hudson
Elizabeth Haase
Affiliation:
University of Nevada, Reno
Kelsey Hudson
Affiliation:
Climate Psychology Alliance North America
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Summary

This chapter explores the relationship between climate distress – particularly fear and sadness about climate change – and clinical-level psychiatric symptoms in children and young people, focusing on pediatric anxiety and depression. In response to societal tendencies to under- or overplay the mental health risks of climate emotional impacts, it describes the spectrum of healthy and unhealthy pediatric anxiety and depression, the role that chronic stress and direct climate impacts play on child and adolescent brain development and clinical syndromes, and the ways that responding emotionally to climate change can influence youth identity development and emotional strength. The chapter provides a template for how to assess young people’s climate emotions clinically, offering several detailed case descriptions to illustrate how stress, psychopathology, psychological and brain development, and climate emotions can weave together to influence the sum of a young person’s presentation. As parents’ and other adults’ responses play a key role in whether these emotions evolve to a clinical level, it also suggests some best practices for interacting with climate-distressed youth to minimize poor clinical outcomes.

Keywords

psychiatryclimate changeneurobiologyyouthpsychological developmentstressanxietydepressionadolescenceclimate distress
Type
Chapter
Information
Climate Change and Youth Mental Health
Multidisciplinary Perspectives
 , pp. 40 - 69
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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