As a psychodynamic psychotherapist and counsellor, much of my work involves exploring the emotional experiences, anxieties and uncertainties that shape people’s lives. Over the past decade, something has changed in what psychotherapists hear. Alongside work, family and relationships, there is now, more and more often, the planet. It may be a summer that felt too hot, a flood near a family home, a landscape that no longer looks the way it did. Therapists increasingly encounter ecological loss, climate anxiety, grief and guilt, in the people they work with and in themselves.
This has a name, climate anxiety, and it is often discussed as if it were a new disorder. The evidence points somewhere else: to an understandable response to a real threat, one that can still become very hard to live with.
What the Research Is Finding
1. How Widespread the Worry Is
One of the largest studies so far was published in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2021. Hickman and colleagues surveyed 10,000 people aged 16 to 25 in ten countries. 59% said they were very or extremely worried about climate change, and 84% at least moderately worried. More than half reported each of these feelings: sadness, anxiety, anger, powerlessness, helplessness and guilt. More than 45% said these feelings negatively affected their daily life and functioning.
The concern is not limited to the young. In the European Commission’s 2025 Eurobarometer survey of 26,319 EU citizens, 85% called climate change a serious problem, and 38% said they feel personally exposed to climate and environmental risks. In Italy, according to ISTAT, 58.1% of people aged 14 and over said in 2024 that they were worried about climate change.
Source: The Lancet Planetary Health (2021); European Commission, Special Eurobarometer 565 (2025); ISTAT (2024 data)
2. Heat, Loss and Grief
The worry rests on something real. In its 2022 assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that mental health challenges are already associated with rising temperatures, with trauma from extreme weather events, and with the loss of livelihoods and culture. It expects anxiety and stress to increase with further warming, particularly for children, adolescents, older people and those with existing health conditions.
Southern Europe is not watching from a distance. A study in Nature Medicine estimated 61,672 heat-related deaths in Europe in the summer of 2022. Italy had the highest number of any country: 18,010.
Then there is loss. Researchers Ashlee Cunsolo and Neville Ellis, writing in Nature Climate Change, describe “ecological grief”: the grief people feel over climate-related losses to valued species, ecosystems and landscapes. They call it a natural and legitimate response.
Source: IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group II (2022); Nature Medicine (2023); Nature Climate Change (2018)
3. From a Niche to a Field
Psychology has been taking this seriously for some time. In 2009, an American Psychological Association task force published Psychology and Global Climate Change, a report on how people perceive climate risk, the psychological barriers that slow action, and the impact of climate change on wellbeing. Its conclusions reached a wider audience in American Psychologist in 2011. Climate psychology has grown into a field of its own since then. In Italy, where it is still little known, I co-authored the free Glossario di Ecopsicologia e Psicologia Climatica (2026) with a group of colleagues. It defines, in Italian, many of the terms used in this article, from climate anxiety and eco-anxiety to ecological grief and solastalgia.
Source: American Psychological Association (2009); American Psychologist (2011); Glossario di Ecopsicologia e Psicologia Climatica (2026)
Expert Opinion: A Sane Response, and Still a Heavy One
Climate anxiety is not a diagnosis, and I do not think it should become one.
Writing in BJPsych Bulletin, the psychoanalyst Joseph Dodds argues that paying attention to what is happening is a healthier response than turning away in denial or disavowal. The anxiety is a signal that someone has let reality in.
This is where a psychodynamic view helps. Faced with a threat this large, we all use defences: we minimise, we push it into the future, we know the facts without feeling them. As early as 1972, the psychoanalyst Harold Searles was writing about the unconscious processes that keep us from responding to environmental crisis. Those who cannot look away are often left holding the feelings for everyone else, and that is a lonely place to be.
Sally Weintrobe develops this question in Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis (2021), arguing that what she calls neoliberal exceptionalism fosters a “culture of uncare”, in which we become psychologically disconnected from the consequences of what we do. For Weintrobe, facing the climate crisis requires not simply more knowledge, but a greater capacity to tolerate reality, recognise our limits and remain connected to what we care about.
Two things make this work different from most of what happens in therapy. First, the threat is real, so the aim cannot be to reassure it away. Second, the therapist lives on the same planet. There is no outside position from which to interpret. What therapy can offer is a place where fear, grief and guilt can be spoken and thought about, so that they do not have to be either acted on in panic or switched off.
I am careful about one more thing. It would be a mistake to treat someone’s distress about the climate as “really” being about something else. It is also true that a global threat meets each person’s own history: earlier losses, a sense of not being protected, a tendency to carry responsibility for everything. Both can be held at once.
What Institutions Are Saying
The World Health Organization addressed the issue directly in a policy brief published in June 2022. In the words of its announcement, “climate change poses serious risks to mental health and well-being.” The same announcement cites a 2021 WHO survey of 95 countries: only 9 had included mental health and psychosocial support in their national health and climate change plans.
WHO recommends five approaches, among them integrating mental health support with climate action, developing community-based approaches, and closing the funding gap for mental health services.
One finding from the Hickman study deserves attention here. Young people’s distress was linked to how they judged their governments’ response: they reported more feelings of betrayal than of reassurance. Climate anxiety, in other words, is not only about the weather. It is also about whether the adults and institutions in charge seem to be taking care of things.
Source: World Health Organization (2022); The Lancet Planetary Health (2021)
What This Means for You
1. Your Worry Is Not a Symptom
Feeling afraid or sad about what is happening to the natural world does not mean something is wrong with you. It means you are paying attention.
2. Notice When It Starts to Shrink Your Life
It is worth seeking support when the worry starts to take over: when it disturbs your sleep, when your thoughts keep circling, when you avoid the news entirely or cannot stop reading it, when decisions about the future feel impossible.
3. Do Not Carry It Alone
These feelings get heavier in isolation. Talking with people who take them seriously helps, and so does time in the natural world itself. I write about that side of the picture in a companion article, Beyond the Therapy Room: Nature, Safety and Mental Health. If you are in acute crisis, contact emergency services: in Italy, call 112.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is climate anxiety?
Climate anxiety is distress about climate change and its consequences. It can include worry, fear, sadness, anger, guilt and a sense of powerlessness. It is often used interchangeably with eco-anxiety, but the two are not the same: eco-anxiety is broader and also covers fear about the loss and degradation of the natural environment as a whole.
Is climate anxiety a mental illness?
No. It is not a diagnosis. Clinicians writing on the subject describe it as an understandable response to a real threat. It can still become distressing enough to affect daily life, and then it deserves support.
How common is climate anxiety?
In a 2021 survey of 10,000 people aged 16 to 25 in ten countries, 59% were very or extremely worried about climate change, and more than 45% said these feelings negatively affected their daily life.
What is ecological grief?
Ecological grief is the grief people feel over climate-related losses to valued species, ecosystems and landscapes. Researchers describe it as a natural and legitimate response to ecological loss. The Glossario di Ecopsicologia e Psicologia Climatica discusses it under the Italian term eco-lutto.
When should I seek help for climate anxiety?
When it starts to interfere with sleep, concentration, relationships or decisions about your future, or when you feel alone with it.
Can therapy help with climate anxiety?
Therapy cannot remove the threat, and it does not try to argue you out of your concern. It can offer a place to think and feel about it with someone else, so that it becomes more bearable.
The First Step Is Just a Conversation
Living far from where you grew up can sharpen all of this: watching a heatwave or a flood at home from a distance, or adjusting to summers that are harder than you expected.
If you are in Milan, I see clients in person in Porta Romana. If you are in Puglia or Bari, or elsewhere in Italy, I work online. Whether you are an expat, an international, LGBTQIA+, or simply someone who thinks more clearly in English, I offer an initial consultation so we can see together whether working with me feels right.
You do not need a crisis to begin. We can start with a conversation.
Official Resources & References
Primary sources:
- World Health Organization: Mental health and climate change — policy brief (June 2022)
- World Health Organization: Why mental health is a priority for action on climate change (3 June 2022)
- IPCC: Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group II — Summary for Policymakers (2022)
- European Commission: Special Eurobarometer 565 on climate change (2025)
- ISTAT: Preoccupazioni ambientali e comportamenti ecocompatibili — Anno 2024 (February 2025)
- American Psychological Association: Psychology and Global Climate Change — task force report (2009)
Supporting research:
- Hickman et al.: Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey — The Lancet Planetary Health (2021)
- Ballester et al.: Heat-related mortality in Europe during the summer of 2022 — Nature Medicine (2023)
- Cunsolo & Ellis: Ecological grief as a mental health response to climate change-related loss — Nature Climate Change (2018)
- Swim et al.: Psychology’s contributions to understanding and addressing global climate change — American Psychologist (2011)
Psychodynamic and relational perspectives:
- Dodds, J.: The psychology of climate anxiety — BJPsych Bulletin (2021)
- Searles, H. F.: Unconscious processes in relation to the environmental crisis — Psychoanalytic Review, 59(3), 361–374 (1972)
- Weintrobe, S. (2021). Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis: Neoliberal Exceptionalism and the Culture of Uncare. Bloomsbury Academic
Further reading:
Antonio Danzi is a psychodynamic psychotherapist and counsellor trained at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in London. He works in person in Milan (Porta Romana) and online across Italy and internationally, and is a registered member of the British Psychoanalytic Council and of AssoCounseling. Get in touch.
Are you looking for an English-speaking psychotherapist and counsellor?
Specialized Psychotherapy for Expats and International Residents
Drawing on clinical training from the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, my practice in the Porta Romana district offers a safe space for international residents and expats seeking culturally sensitive psychological support in Milan.
I offer a safe, non-judgmental space for LGBTQIA+ clients exploring identity, relationships, and wellbeing.
Support for expats and returning Italians facing homesickness, culture shock, and the loss of belonging that living between cultures can bring.
I work with adults and young people struggling with attention, motivation, or performance-related stress, often linked to anxiety, perfectionism, or emotional avoidance.
I receive regular supervision for the work I offer and I work along the code of practice of the British Psychoanalytic Council and the Italian Association of Counselling.
Let’s Talk
Taking the first step is often the hardest, but you don’t have to do it alone. Whether you are ready to book a session or just have a few questions, feel free to reach out. I read every message personally and will get back to you within 24 hours.