Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T00:34:11.490Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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
Get access

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adam, E. K., Hittner, E. F., Thomas, S. E., Villaume, S. C., & Nwafor, E. E. (2020). Racial discrimination and ethnic racial identity in adolescence as modulators of HPA axis activity. Development and Psychopathology, 32(5), 1669–1684. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095457942000111XCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Agho, K., Stevens, G., Taylor, M., Barr, M., & Raphael, B. (2010). Population risk perceptions of global warming in Australia. Environmental Research, 110(8), 756–763. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2010.09.007CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (2020). Opinion Poll, Annual Meeting.Google Scholar
American Psychological Association (2018). Stress in America: Generation Z. Stress in AmericaTM survey.Google Scholar
Arain, M., Haque, M., Johal, L., Mathur, P., Nel, W., Rais, A., Sandhu, R., & Sharma, S. (2013). Maturation of the adolescent brain. Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 9, 449–461. https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S39776Google ScholarPubMed
Baum, G. L., Cui, Z., Roalf, D. R., Ciric, R., Betzel, R. F., Larsen, B., … Satterthwaite, T. D. (2020). Development of structure–function coupling in human brain networks during youth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences – PNAS, 117(1), 771–778. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912034117CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berry, H., & Peel, D. (2015). Worrying about climate change: Is it responsible to promote public debate? BJPsych International, 12(2), 31–32. https://doi.org/10.1192/S2056474000000234CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2023). Youth risk behavior survey data. www.cdc.gov/yrbs, accessed April 30, 2023.Google Scholar
Clayton, S., Czellar, S., Nartova-Bochaver, S., Skibins, J. C., Salazar, G., Tseng, Y.-C., Irkhin, B., & Monge-Rodriguez, F. S. (2021). Cross-cultural validation of a revised environmental identity scale. Sustainability, 13(4), 2387. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13042387CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clayton, S., & Karazsia, B. (2020). Development and validation of a measure of climate change anxiety. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101434CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cousins, L., & Goodyer, I. M. (2015). Antidepressants and the adolescent brain. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 29(5), 545–555. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269881115573542CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dumont, C., Haase, E., Dolber, T., Lewis, J., & Coverdale, J. (2020). Climate change and risk of completed suicide. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 208(7), 559–565. https://doi.org/10.1097/NMD.0000000000001162CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eley, T. C., McAdams, T. A., Rijsdijk, F. V., Lichtenstein, P., Narusyte, J., Reiss, D., … Neiderhiser, J. M. (2015). The intergenerational transmission of anxiety: A children-of-twins study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 172(7), 630–637. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.14070818CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Engel, G. (1977). The need for a new medical model: A challenge for biomedicine. Science, 196, 129–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farmer, S. (2019). How Greta Thunberg’s autism helped make her the world’s most important person in 2020. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/468091-opinion-activist-greta-thunbergs-autism-doesnt-hold-her-back/Google Scholar
Galván, A. (2021). Adolescent brain development and contextual influences: A decade in review. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 31(4), 843–869. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12687CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ginsburg, G. S., Siqueland, L., Masia-Warner, C., & Hedtke, K. A. (2004). Anxiety disorders in children: Family matters. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 11(1), 28–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1077-7229(04)80005-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, J., Hurwitz, M., Park, J., & Smith, J. (2018). Heat and learning (NBER Working Paper No. 24639). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/harjfk/rwp18-014.htmlGoogle Scholar
Grant, K. E., Compas, B. E., Thurm, A. E., McMahon, S. D., & Gipson, P. Y. (2004). Stressors and child and adolescent psychopathology: Measurement issues and prospective effects. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 33(2): 412–425.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Groth, N., Schnyder, N., Kaess, M., Markovic, A., Rietschel, L., Moser, S., … Schmidt, S. J. (2019). Coping as a mediator between locus of control, competence beliefs, and mental health: A systematic review and structural equation modelling meta-analysis. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 121, 103442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2019.103442CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Helm, S. V., Pollitt, A., Barnett, M. A., Curran, M. A., & Craig, Z. R. (2018). Differentiating environmental concern in the context of psychological adaption to climate change. Global Environmental Change, 48, 158–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.11.012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henker, B., Whalen, C. K., & O’Neil, R. (1995). Worldly and workaday worries: Contemporary concerns of children and young adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 23(6), 685–702. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01447472CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, R. E., Mayall, E. E., … van Susteren, L. (2021). Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: A global survey. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(12), e863–e873.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hogg, S. K., O’Brien, L. V., Wilson, M. S., & Watsford, C. R. (2021). The Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale: Development and validation of a multidimensional scale. Global Environmental Change, 71, 102391. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102391CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kessler, R. C., Berglund, P., Demler, O., Jin, R., Merikangas, K. R., & Walters, E. E. (2005). Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey replication. Archives of General Psychiatry, 62(6), 593–602.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Knowles, K. A., & Olatunji, B. O. (2020). Specificity of trait anxiety in anxiety and depression: Meta-analysis of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Clinical Psychology Review, 82, 101928. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2020.101928CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koss, K. J., & Gunnar, M. R. (2018). Annual research review: Early adversity, the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenocortical axis, and child psychopathology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 59(4), 327–346. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12784CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kurth, C., & Pihkala, P. (2022). Eco-anxiety: What it is and why it matters. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 981814. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.981814CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Landrigan, P. J., Kimmel, C. A., Correa, A., & Eskenazi, B. (2004). Children’s health and the environment: Public health issues and challenges for risk assessment. Environmental Health Perspectives, 112(2), 257–265. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.6115CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Rosenthal, S., Kotcher, J., Ballew, M., Goldberg, M., & Gustafson, A. (2018). Climate change in the American mind: December 2018. Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication.Google Scholar
Lomas, T. (2018). The quiet virtues of sadness: A selective theoretical and interpretative appreciation of its potential contribution to wellbeing. New Ideas in Psychology, 49, 18–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2018.01.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, J. P., Willox, A. C., Ford, J. D., Shiwak, I., Wood, M., Government, R. I. C., & Team, I. (2015). Protective factors for mental health and well-being in a changing climate: Perspectives from Inuit youth in Nunatsiavut, Labrador. Social Science and Medicine, 141, 133–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.07.017CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manczak, E. M., Miller, J. G., & Gotlib, I. H. (2022). Census tract ambient ozone predicts trajectories of depressive symptoms in adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 58(3), 485–492. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001310CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCreary, D. R. (2007). The Drive for Muscularity Scale: Description, psychometrics, and research findings. In Thompson, J. K. & Cafri, G. (Eds.), The muscular ideal: Psychological, social, and medical perspectives (pp. 87–106). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/11581-004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merlin, C., Okerson, J. R., & Hess, P. (2013). How parenting style influences children: A review of controlling, guiding, and permitting parenting styles on children’s behavior, risk-taking, mental health, and academic achievement. William and Mary Educational Review, 2(1), 32–43.Google Scholar
Micco, J. A., Henin, A., Mick, E., Kim, S., Hopkins, C. A., Biederman, J., & Hirshfeld-Becker, D. R. (2009). Anxiety and depressive disorders in offspring at high risk for anxiety: A meta-analysis. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 23, 1158–1164.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Newbury, J. B., Arseneault, L., Beevers, S., Kitwiroon, N., Roberts, S., Pariante, C. M., Kelly, F., & Fisher, H. L. (2019). Association of air pollution exposure with psychotic experiences during adolescence. JAMA Psychiatry, 76(6), 614–623. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.0056CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nisbet, E. K. L., Zelenski, J. M., & Murphy, S. A. (2009). The Nature Relatedness Scale: Linking individuals’ connection with nature to environmental concern and behaviour. Environment and Behavior, 41, 715–740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ojala, M. (2005). Adolescents’ worries about environmental risks: Subjective well-being, values, and existential dimensions. Journal of Youth Studies, 8(3), 331–347. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676260500261934CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ojala, M. (2012). How do children cope with global climate change? Coping strategies, engagement, and well-being. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(3), 225–233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2012.02.004CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Overholser, J. C., (2014). Chasing the latest fad: Confronting recent and historical innovations in mental illness. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 44(1), 53–61. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-013-9250-zCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pattwell, S. S., Duhoux, S., Hartley, C. A., Johnson, D. C., Jing, D., Elliott, M. D., … Lee, F. S. (2012). Altered fear learning across development in both mouse and human. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 109(40), 16318–16323.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perera, F. P. (2017). Multiple threats to child health from fossil fuel combustion: Impacts of air pollution and climate change. Environmental Health Perspectives, 125, 141–148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Platt, B., Kadosh, K. C., & Lau, J. Y. F. (2013). The role of peer rejection in adolescent depression. Depression and Anxiety, 30(9), 809–821. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22120CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ramadan, R. A., Lavoie, S., Gao, C. X., Manrique, P. C., Anderson, R., McDowell, C., & Zbukvic, I. (2023). Empirical evidence for climate concerns, negative emotions and climate-related mental ill-health in young people: A scoping review. Early Intervention in Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1111/eip.13374CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reser, J. P., Bradley, G. L., & Ellul, M. C., (2014). Public risk perceptions, understandings and responses to climate change. In Palutikof, J. P., Boulter, S. L., Barnett, J., & Rissik, D. (Eds.), Applied studies in climate adaptation (pp. 43–50), John Wiley & Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sadock, B. J., & Sadock, V. A. (2005). Kaplan & Sadock’s comprehensive textbook of psychiatry (8th ed.). Lippincott Williams & Wilkinson (Vol I: 1726–27, 3262–3).Google Scholar
Saviola, F., Pappaianni, E., Monti, A., Grecucci, A., Jovicich, J., & De Pisapia, N. (2020). Trait and state anxiety are mapped differently in the human brain. Nature, Scientific Reports, 10(1), 11112. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68008-zGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schultz, W. (2001). The structure of environmental concern: Concern for self, other people, and the biosphere. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 21(4), 327–339. https://doi.org/10.1006/jevp.2001.0227CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, K., & Gow, K. (2010). Do concerns about climate change lead to distress? International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, 2(4), 362–379. https://doi.org/10.1108/17568691011089891CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selph, S. S., & McDonagh, M. S. (2019). Depression in children and adolescents: Evaluation and treatment. American Family Physician, 100(10), 609–617.Google ScholarPubMed
Shankar, P., Chung, R., & Frank, D. A. (2017). Association of food insecurity with children’s behavioral, emotional, and academic outcomes: A systematic review. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 38(2), 135–150.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sheth, C., McGlade, E., & Yurgelun-Todd, D. (2017). Chronic stress in adolescents and its neurobiological and psychopathological consequences: An RDoC perspective. Chronic Stress, 1, 247054701771564. https://doi.org/10.1177/2470547017715645CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stige, S. H., Barca, T., Lavik, K. O., & Moltu, C. (2021). Barriers and facilitators in adolescent psychotherapy initiated by adults-experiences that differentiate adolescents’ trajectories through mental health care. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 633663. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.633663CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sundblad, E. L., Biel, A., & Gärling, T. (2007). Cognitive and affective risk judgements related to climate change. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27(2), 97–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2007.01.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tashjian, S. M., & Galvan, A. (2018). The role of mesolimbic circuity in buffering election-related distress. Journal of Neuroscience, 38, 2887–2898. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2470-17.2018CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, T., Lloyd, A., Joseph, A., & Weiss, M. (2017). The Weiss functional impairment rating scale-parent form for assessing ADHD: Evaluating diagnostic accuracy and determining optimal thresholds using ROC analysis. Quality of Life Research, 26(7), 1879–1885. doi: 10.1007/s11136-017-1514-8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tremblay, H. (2012). Eco-terrorists facing armageddon: The defence of necessity and legal normativity in the context of environmental crisis. McGill Law Journal, 58(2), 321–364. https://doi.org/10.7202/1017517arCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treynor, W., Gonzalez, R., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2003). Rumination reconsidered: A psychometric analysis. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27(3), 247–259. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023910315561CrossRefGoogle Scholar
UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti (2017). The adolescent brain: A second window of opportunity. UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti, Florence.Google Scholar
Verplanken, B., & Roy, D. (2013). “My worries are rational, climate change is not”: Habitual ecological worrying is an adaptive response. PloS One, 8(9), e74708. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0074708CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volkow, N. D., Gordon, J. A., Koob, G. F., Birnbaum, L. S., Clayton, J. A., Koroshetz, W. J., … Croyle, R. T. (2020). An examination of child and adolescent neurodevelopment through national institutes of health studies. Public Health Reports, 135(2), 169–172. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033354919900889CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wardell, S. (2020). Naming and framing ecological distress. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 7(2), 187–201. https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.7.2.768CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, M. D., McBride, N. M., Craig, S., & Jensen, P. (2018). Conceptual review of measuring functional impairment: Findings from the Weiss Functional Impairment Rating Scale, BMJ Mental Health 2018, 21, 155–164, scale available at www.caddra.ca/wp-content/uploads/WFIRS-S.pdfGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolf, J., & Salo, R. (2008). Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink: Climate change delusion. Australasian Psychiatry: Bulletin of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, 42(4), 350–350. https://doi.org/10.1080/00048670701881603Google ScholarPubMed
World Energy Council (2013). World energy resources 2013 survey: Summary. World Energy Council.Google Scholar
World Population Review (2023). Suicide rate by country, 2023, https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country, accessed April 30, 2023Google Scholar
Zaleski, Z. (1996). Future anxiety: Concept, measurement, and preliminary research. Personality and Individual Differences, 21(2), 165–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×