Based on earlier empirical research, the main aim of this chapter is to argue for the importance of promoting meaning-focused coping and constructive hope in relation to climate change among young people. We start by describing the role of meaning and positive emotions like hope in the coping process and how meaning-focused coping and constructive hope are interrelated. Thereafter, we describe several aspects of meaning-focused coping in relation to the climate threat and show that this way of coping is associated with both mental well-being and climate change engagement. We also review some studies that demonstrate how collective climate engagement can give hope and meaning to young activists. The chapter also aims to discuss the practical implications of these studies, both for different groups of adults who want to communicate with youth about climate change in a constructive way (like parents and teachers) and for young people themselves. We finish the chapter by emphasizing the need for promoting critical emotional awareness where it is acknowledged that emotions and coping are not solely individual experiences but are also influenced by cultural emotion norms, gender norms, and power. The age groups in focus are adolescents and emerging adults.

Indigenous communities inherit a disproportionate burden of risks associated with climate change impacts, largely due to social and ecological determinants of health consistent with enduring architecture of settler-colonialism. Indigenous youth, then, must contend with histories of dispossession, loss, and historical trauma while also shouldering the reality of climate change that threatens their livelihoods and those of their communities. This chapter discusses the historical implications of colonialism on Indigenous youth mental health, while also considering the direct and indirect climate impacts on Indigenous youth wellness and mental health, particularly from a social and ecological determinants of health perspective. In addition, the authors advance that ethical principles and calls to action to privilege health equity promote the adaptive capacity of Indigenous youth and their communities. Finally, this chapter concludes with recognizing how Indigenous epistemologies and kinship systems can promote health and well-being of Indigenous youth, while also improving planetary health in the process.

In this chapter we reflect on core components of an immersive program for young adults focused on how to come of age in and be in service to the complex matrix of demands of these times. Our program, called the Earth Leadership Cohort (ELC), was an adaptation of the Work That Reconnects for North American 18- to 30-year-olds. We describe the rationale and framework of the Work That Reconnects that shaped our curriculum. We focus on two features of ELC that we found to be essential when working with young adults in the context of the climate crisis. First, paradigms must shift from anthropocentric to ecocentric. Second, we must meet the generational demand for an intersectional approach. We describe challenges that required our willingness to adapt to our participants’ call for greater intersectionality and to attend to the role of systemic racism in the history and practice of climate activism. Throughout, we offer a sampling of our practices and processes for illustration. We conclude with a discussion of inherent limitations and possible applicability and relevance of our program for those working with young adults across multiple settings.

This chapter provides a research agenda for pediatric climate distress. It is structured into five domains. First, it reviews the importance of delineating among existing definitions of climate distress, including distinguishing between normal and pathological stress responses and integrating concepts from existing anxiety literature. Second, it discusses the importance of researching the epidemiology of climate distress, including developing and validating measurement tools, identifying young people most vulnerable and resilient, and considering the effects of parental mental health and social determinants of health on youths’ psychological responses. Third, it highlights the need to explore the psychological meaning and sequelae of climate change, including moral disengagement, dialectics of climate distress, and moral outrage. Fourth, it points to conventional and novel interventions to address climate distress that require further investigation. Fifth, it reviews the need to assess how climate change may impact young peoples’ psychological distress on a biological level. It concludes with recommendations for how to foster interdisciplinary collaborations and increase funding for this research.

It is well established that climate change poses significant threats to human health and well-being. Young people, who face a future burdened by climate change, will be among those most affected. It is understandable that increasing awareness of these threats brings increasing distress. Many young people will experience anxiety and other distressing emotions in relation to climate change, but some may experience a level of anxiety that threatens their mental health. In order to provide help needed by young people who are affected, there is a need to further understand the nature, predictors and consequences of climate distress. This chapter thus provides an overview of what we know and what we need to know about young people who experience climate-related distress.

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.

Humans have evolved as a species with unique capabilities to destroy this world that we inhabit. Some of this destructiveness is a function of a loss of embodied wisdom and a dissociative disconnection from the complex systems of life on the planet. Inaction about climate change is a failure to protect our children and can be considered institutional child abuse. Climate disasters, along with other social injustices, traumatize all life on the planet, and disproportionately impact those already struggling with loss of community support. Fostering posttraumatic wisdom in youth requires recognition that some are vulnerable to maladaptive psychic numbing, while others manifest a resilience born from imagination and creativity.

Supportive educators can aid young people in channelling negative emotions about climate change in healthy, adaptive ways. However, globally only a small minority (13 percent) of young people in school have been asked to consider their feelings about climate change and most teachers lack training and confidence to deliver climate change education. The first portion of this chapter provides an overview of climate change education and explores young people’s climate distress in educational settings, with an emphasis on institutional betrayal. The second portion presents case studies and qualitative data from semi-structured interviews conducted with four leading practitioners whose approaches to climate change education acknowledge and support the mental health implications for young people. Finally, themes identified from thematic analysis of the interviews are presented, and key insights for good practice in climate change education are provided.

This chapter, written for those who work with children and adolescents, summarizes, explains and extends psychoanalytic thinking about young people and climate change. Ambivalence, disavowal, grief, unconscious societal pressures, feelings of betrayal, regression to immature defenses, and interaction of climate concerns with other developmental issues are explored, applying the developmental frameworks of Melanie Klein, Erik Erikson, and Wilfred Bion. Climate change implications within each Eriksonian stage of psychosocial development through young adulthood are described. Specific recommendations are made to promote healthy attachment to the natural world, valuable versions of hope, and alignment with values. The importance of being a “good-enough” “flexible container” in relation to young people is emphasized. Particular considerations in addressing climate change issues with young children and with adolescents are detailed.

Clinical work with climate-distressed youth using a developmental framework is described, from two theoretical perspectives: acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and psychodynamic psychotherapy. General principles of climate-informed therapy are delineated, and case examples illustrate the use of theory in practice. Interventions involving the family, psychoeducation, resilience-building skills, developing a conscious relationship to nature, engaging in environmentally beneficial actions, increasing the tolerance for uncertainty, and developing career goals around the needs of a changing environment and society are described. The authors discuss the need for the clinician to prepare themselves for the challenges of this work, which include one’s own reactions of emotional distress when youth bring this topic up. Ways the clinician can model responses to climate distress are discussed, including staying informed about the multiple unfolding, intersecting crises, and tolerating a multitude of emotional reactions attendant to this urgent situation. The clinician is encouraged to have and use play materials that can be adapted to environmental themes. The importance of providing a secure attachment relationship to use as a base in “weathering the storms” of the climate crisis is emphasized.

Emerging research suggests that young people are more likely to experience climate distress than adults, yet there is little understanding of the factors that influence young people’s experience of climate distress. This chapter uses a social-ecological framework to identify individual, physical, and systemic influences from micro (e.g., family, peers), meso (school, community), techno (technology and media), exo (government), and macro (culture and society) systems on youth climate distress. Factors that may exacerbate climate distress or protect youth well-being are highlighted, as well as recommendations and key considerations for supporting the mental health of young people.

The concluding chapter of this volume maps the contributions of the book as a whole, articulates possible future directions for further research, and offers a humanities lens to this conversation about youth mental health. Directions for further exploration include expanding the frame to encompass studies of affect and emotions (not just mental health), investigating the cultural politics of emotions (not just the importance of inner well-being) by situating emotions within political landscapes, enlarging the vocabulary of climate emotions (beyond the language of mental health), and queering climate emotions research.