Ro Randall [RR] is a psychotherapist and long time climate change activist. Among other works, she is the author of Loss and Climate Change: The Cost of Parallel Narratives. She spoke to NLP's Alex Doherty [AD].....
[RR]If public events become traumatic or even just begin to pose threats to people’s well-being or accustomed ways of life, then we might expect to find psychological reactions to this, just as you would to any other threat. Psychoanalysis suggests that these psychological reactions are unlikely to be simple and straightforward. It assumes that the individual psyche is a place of conflict, typified by competing desires, impulses and injunctions, a system with many parts in dynamic interplay, shaped by personal history where individual responses are shaped as much by unconscious desires as by rational understanding and decision. Most critically, psychoanalysis argues that the human mind is equipped to defend against too much painful experience and most people unconsciously resist engaging with matters that will be too disturbing.
So although on the one hand you might expect that people would become anxious, guilty, stressed, sleepless, despairing or depressed about the news of catastrophic climate change, on the other hand you might expect that they would bring all their complex defences to bear on the matter. These defences can manifest as apathy and indifference as Renee Lertzman describes, as outright denial as we see in some reactions to climate change, or in compensatory activities which numb or distract from awareness. You might see the preoccupations with shopping and acquisition of material goods in this light. More dangerously you might anticipate the projection of the problem elsewhere, with excluded or less powerful groups being blamed.
What is critical in determining how people react is often how safe it is to respond openly and with the full range of affect. When politicians and global corporations fail to take responsibility or offer mixed messages about the seriousness of the problem, this may produce states of confusion or increase the indifferent and apathetic defences in the population as a whole. Psychotherapists talk about the need for ‘containment’ – some sense of safety and trust – if difficult subjects are to be thought about. The absence of such containment produces confusion, defensiveness and a retreat into irrationality. People become unable to solve problems creatively. In the privacy of the consulting room this containment is provided by the therapist. In the public sphere it is more likely to result from leadership, the narratives used, the realism of the solutions suggested and the opportunities for genuine citizen involvement in shaping them. If people can’t express, share and symbolise these difficult experiences the long-term effect is likely to be an increase in irrationality, apocalyptic thinking, denial or self-destructive activities, none of which are good for anyone’s mental health.
What I have described above is a simplification however. It suggests that there is an inner mind and an outer reality and of course that is not really true. It is probably more helpful to think about the co-creation of complex psycho-social realities where there is a dynamic relationship between what we like to think of as ‘inner’ and ‘outer’.......
Sociologists like Zygmunt Bauman and Anthony Giddens describe this late modern period as one where questions of anxiety, choice and identity dominate personal life. The solid reference points of the modern period, defining role, place, rights and responsibilities have been replaced by a myriad of competing and confusing choices. You don’t grow up knowing where you fit in and what the future holds for you. Identity is no longer a given, something which people are born into, but something to be constantly constructed and in particular to be shopped for, whether the shopping is for actual material objects, or for lifestyle, career or relationship. One can be, or aspire, to anything, while human bonds are provisional, temporary and contingent. Even people whose lives are in reality very constricted are encouraged to imagine that the world is their oyster and that they could – through winning the lottery, or appearing on reality TV – become who they desire to be.
Wrapped up in this of course are the demands of capital. Putting it rather crudely you might say that not only is capital’s need for a flexible workforce well served by a population that must turn its hand to anything but capital’s never-ending need for new markets is well served by a population that is pre-occupied by the self. Goods can be marketed as meanings to identify with, the hope of change can be invested in objects, shopping can become the preferred means of exercising power.
Psychologically, what this does is make people more narcissistically vulnerable – questions of self-esteem, shame, the boundary between self and other, the integrity and representation of the bodily self for example, become more critical in people’s lives and so this is what appears in the consulting room.
[AD]You have suggested that there are serious psychological consequences for those engaged in climate campaigning . Can you describe those consequences?
[RR]I’ve been concerned by the extent of ‘burn-out’ I’ve come across – in particular states of exhaustion, the development of cynicism and despair. But also the opposite of these in the form of a kind of ‘pollyanna-ish’ defensiveness where people convince themselves that all is solvable, either through technology or through local community action. I think both of these tendencies have increased post-Copenhagen, along with a tendency for campaigners sometimes to blame each other rather than the powerful actors in the political system. This is a common response amongst groups experiencing failure – you begin by minutely examining the reasons for the lack of success and end by attacking each other or alternatively withdrawing altogether.
It’s hard to put yourself constantly in the position of knowing about difficult or traumatic events, particularly if your efforts to change things meet with constant indifference and opposition. You can’t avoid being distressed, anxious and angry about what you encounter so we shouldn’t be surprised by these responses. Again, what I think are needed are opportunities for reflective practice – situations where people can safely talk about their responses to the increasingly difficult circumstances of their work. I don’t think there is much tradition of this amongst campaigners and it would be interesting to explore how to develop it.
[AD]Given the likely awesome consequences of climate change and the increasingly dim prospects of averting disaster is despair not an appropriate response? Can one be both happy and aware of the terrible realities of climate change?
[RR]Yes. Despair is an appropriate response, but it’s important to see despair as part of the process of coming to terms with loss. It is no longer possible to believe that we will avert the catastrophic consequences of climate change and that is a terrible knowledge to absorb. It will produce in anyone who allows themselves to face it, the blackest, bleakest moments. However, to remain consumed by despair, to be despairing about everything, to insist on the primacy of this personal emotional response, is in the end to be in a narcissistic place. There has to be a process of coming through the rage at the idiocy of the politicians, the sadness at the destruction of the natural world, and the grief at what future generations will face, to the knowledge that there are still ethical decisions to be taken and responsible actions that matter. We cannot avert the consequences of climate change but we can still work for a world that faces those consequences equitably, justly and responsibly. And we should not punish ourselves for our failure to do more by refusing to take joy in a sunset, or delight in a child’s first steps or laugh and crack jokes with friends.