The Climate Crisis in Therapy ~ 4 CE Clinician Training

Evergreen Behavioral Health Association presents:

The Climate Crisis in the Therapy Room and Beyond~

Changing Our Work for Our Changing World

with

Wendy Greenspun, PhD Psychologist

Nationally-renowned expert on climate distress and psychotherapy

Saturday, October 19, 2024

4 CE Online Training for Mental Health Clinicians (pending NASW approval)

Workshop description

As awareness and impacts of the climate, biodiversity and inequity crisis grow in scope and scale, mental health clinicians are increasingly faced with clients struggling with various forms of climate distress and grief. In this workshop, Dr. Wendy Greenspun will help us look at the challenges of being a clinician in this changing world, including what it means to be embedded in this “polycrisis” along with our clients, how to build our own emotional sustainability practices, and ways we can navigate some of the challenges that emerge in climate-informed therapy. Considerations about how we might expand our psychotherapeutic models and ways to intervene will additionally be explored.

Learning objectives

At the end of the session, participants will be better able to:

• Describe common emotional responses and psychological defense mechanisms that can emerge in the face of the climate crisis and embedded injustices.
• Identify several important clinical attitudes for climate-aware therapists across therapeutic modalities.
• Explain why those who are helping others struggling with climate distress need to tend to their own emotional when engaging in climate-inclusive work.
• List three types of traumatic stress that can be responses to climate and environmental distress and disruptions.
• Identify several strategies for working with clients who are having polarized (“all-or-none”) responses to the climate crisis.

Workshop Schedule

8:30- 8:35 am: Introduction of workshop by EBHA, housekeeping

8:35-8:45: Presenter introduction, how she got involved; why clinicians need to know about the multi-layered climate crisis

8:45- 9:20: Overview of the polycrisis, including embedded injustices. Overview of the emotional responses and impacts, including various forms of climate distress and grief and defenses against facing the enormity of what is happening

9:20-9:30: Questions and discussion, including challenges attendees have experienced or anticipate in doing clinical work with climate distress

9:30- 9:40 : BREAK

9:40-10:15: Working with our own emotional responses as we engage in climate-inclusive clinical work; attitudes for the climate-aware therapist

10:15- 10:25: Questions and discussion

10:25- 11:10: Engaging in clinical work, including assessment, engaging those not bringing up the issues, processing the emotions, calming the nervous system and transforming distress into sources of meaning, values, community and action.

11:10- 11:20: Questions and discussion

11:20- 11:30 BREAK

11:30- 12:15- Specific challenges in climate aware therapy--ethical questions and polarized responses; particular topics that emerge for focus (decisions around having children; relational conflicts; hope vs. hopelessness; trauma; grief)

12:15- 12:45: Enlarging the scope of our work, decolonizing our practice, widening the field of engagement to focus on groups and communities

12:45-12:55: Questions and discussion

12:55- 1:00: Administrative closing from organization

Trainer bio

Wendy Greenspun, PhD is a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City. She served 4 years on the Board of the Climate Psychology Alliance-North America, currently heads the Clinical Support committee, Climate Café Facilitator training group, and teaches in the Climate Aware Therapy course for the organization. She is on faculty at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, where she teaches the Climate and Psychoanalysis course, and has also served as clinical faculty for the California Institute of Integral Studies Climate Psychology Certificate program.

Dr. Greenspun worked for 25 years at the Columbia University Counseling Center, specializing in trauma, couple therapy and climate distress. She has published, presented papers, and given workshops and courses nationally and internationally for mental health professionals on ways to work with climate distress and grief. She also provides workshops on building emotional resilience for environmental groups, climate activists, artists, high school, and university students. She was an invited speaker for the 15th Annual Psychology Day at the UN- Building Hope: Contributions to a Roadmap for Climate Action. More of her work can be found at: www.wendygreenspun.com

Certificate of Attendance Requirements

Full attendance and a post-training workshop evaluation are required to receive a certificate. Certificates will be sent out electronically after the training to your registration email address, along with any materials from the presentation. EBHA's CE courses are certified by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). Typically, other licensing boards accept NASW certified courses. Note that it is the participant's responsibility to check with your individual state boards to verify CE requirements for your licensing body.

Event Venue

Online