Dr Panu Pihkala, CPA member and Professor at the University of Helsinki, recently released a paper which offers a new model for exploring the process of encountering the ecological crisis.
The Process of Eco-Anxiety and Ecological Grief: A Narrative Review and a New Proposal provides a framework for understanding this complex process of awakening to and trying to cope with our awareness of the socio-ecological state of the world, and then living with the ecological crisis. It recognises that the journey is not linear and has various phases, dimensions, and possible outcomes.
The diagram below shows this clearly. As Dr Britt Wray comments,
“Imagine we had a visual depiction of this vibrant, painful, life-changing experience, a road map for how to move through it ourselves while also reminding us to hold space and deepen our empathy for people who might be behind us or ahead of us in the journey.
Dr. Panu Pihkala has just given us this very thing.”
