Season 2, Episode 18: Holding Space for Climate Emotions and Possibilities with Psychiatrist Janet Lewis

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 2, Episode 18: Holding Space for Climate Emotions and Possibilities with Psychiatrist Janet Lewis

Join Panu and Thomas for a thought provoking conversation with Janet Lewis, a founding member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance. Janet reflected on her experiences of living through disasters and what this has taught her. She explained the therapy concept of “containment”—the ability to experience and hold space for strong emotional expressions in ourselves and others—and how this applies to climate coping and resilience. We have many options for creating a sense of containment: intellectually, emotionally, within supportive relationships and through engaging and taking action. Janet observed that in this time “We are either within or between disasters” and it is important to hold open this creative space. It is the ethical responsibility of those of us not in disaster to work on climate mitigation and adaptation. Janet also spoke of finding solace in the nature of complex systems and possibility of emergence of new forms and ideas.

Links

• Janet Lewis, Elizabeth Haase, and Alexander Trope (2020). Climate Dialectics in Psychotherapy: Holding Open the Space Between Abyss and Advance. Psychodynamic Psychiatry 48 (3): 271–94.

• Beth Mark and Janet Lewis (2020). Group Interventions for Climate Change Distress. Psychiatric Times.

• Janet Lewis (2021) Chapter: Global Mental Health, Planetary Health, and the Ethical Co-Benefit (request full text from author)

• Jacob Needelman (2023, March 14): Forget Utopia. Ignore Dystopia. Embrace Protopia! New York Times

Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast see the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Thomas Doherty: Well, hello, I'm Thomas Doherty.

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. Our podcast. The show for people around the world around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about issues like climate change, and the environmental crisis in nature. And all these things that revolve around these big topics. And, again, we focus on the emotions and our feelings, among other things. And today, we are really excited to have a guest with us.

Janet Lewis: Hi, I'm Janet Lewis. I'm a psychiatrist in central New York State. And I'm a founding member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance. And I do a lot of teaching about mental health effects of climate change.

Doherty: Yes. And we're so glad to have Janet with us. Janet lives in part of the country in the US near where I grew up in western New York State or central New York State. And like other guests that we've had on this podcast, Janet has been doing this work for a while and is one of the pathfinders, one of the innovators that have helped to build knowledge of climate psychology. Particularly climate therapy and climate psychiatry. So we're really glad to have a discussion. I know Panu and I have both seen Janet's work over the years. And it's really nice to meet someone. And it's really validating for us, I think, to [meet] with [a] kindred spirit. Panu, do you want to get us started?

Pihkala: Yes, warmly welcome Janet. Very pleased to meet you online. And you've been engaged with this topic for a long time. But would you like to share a bit about your background story? So how did you end up becoming a climate aware psychological professional?

Lewis: Well, I know different people come to this in different ways. I'm one of the people who sort of had an awakening in a particular moment. I think I'd been primed for it because I've known some disasters in my life. I've had my house burned down, not from anything climate change related. But I've also been in a hurricane. And I've been in some flooding situations. But I had a moment, when I was at a conference. It was the Integral Theory Conference in California. And that's a group, a movement that's spiritually oriented and nd also very intellectually open. Interested in fitting together as much as possible. In ways of thinking about life and the world. And I was at this conference. There was a lot of talk about climate change. And most of the people of the conference were in a state of a fair amount of equanimity a lot of the time. As I say, it's a sort of spiritually oriented movement. But my suitemate was talking to me in a very agitated way about climate change. And she looked me in the eye, and she said, “the bottom line, Janet, is that we may be able to adapt to two degrees, but right now we're on track for over four degrees. And that will create an earth we would not recognize.”

And I'd heard things like that before, you know, of course. But for some reason, in that moment, the information really penetrated for me. And it was just clear for me right away, okay, this is the most important thing going on. This is what I have to work on. And I, in very short order, knew the sorts of things I was good at and set about finding like minded colleagues. That's how I kind of threw myself to the front, like many others have, of climate mental health. And that experience made me very interested in the whole phenomenon of containment. You know, because what happened for me that the information was able to penetrate? And I could think so clearly about what to do. What allowed that to happen? And I think I was in an extremely containing environment, with, as I say, it being a very open, supportive and also spiritually-oriented conference there. And this whole notion of containment, I find, really, really important in relation to climate change. And I know that this podcast is about emotions. So, intellectualization is my go to defense. So feel free to stop me and get at what the emotions are. But emotionally, there's an emotional valence to clarity that's alivening. And so that's where I was at. And I, as I say, I've been very interested in the topic of containment. It's a very specific term in the psychoanalytic literature.

The theorists [Wilfred] Bion or bye-on, different people who pronounce it differently, talked about it in very specific terms. As what happens between a parent and an infant that helps the infant to be with an experience that's difficult to bear. So the infant will cry. And then the caretaker or parent doesn't just cry back at the infant. Instead, the caretaker takes in the communication and metabolizes it in a sense. And then voluntarily gives something new back, that's tolerable for the infant. And in that way, the infant learns how to metabolize experience in a bearable way themselves. Because they've been given this larger space of the relationship with the parent. So then, in a more general way, containment has to do with all of the things that help us to bear what's difficult to bear. That helps us to get to a larger space. From which we can have perspective and within which we can find meaning. You know, the kind of clarity that, as I say, can be so enlivening. You know, not that I'm there all the time. I mean, like anybody, I cycle through all sorts of feelings in relation to climate change. But this is an important touchstone for me, you know, ways to get to larger space.

Pihkala: Thank you. That's very interesting and profound to hear. And this topic of awakening, or having an epiphany, or conversion moment, it's actually often discussed in these terms. Which are closely related to religion and spirituality, even in environmental research. So there's interesting stuff going on there. And [I'm] very fascinated [by] what you say about containment. But how about you, Thomas? What does this spark in you?

Doherty: No, it's really helpful. And I'm glad, Janet, that you define a term for the listeners. Yeah. So I mean, what I think of containment. I think another way to think of it is holding space. Holding a space for someone, you know, so when our friend tells us a story, or someone's needing help, you know, we hold space for them. We listen. We validate. We make it clear to them that we believe them. We think their concerns are valid. So, you know, in many ways this whole podcast is its role, right? Is a containment, right? That's part of our mission in the podcast is to create a container, a space to talk about these emotions and various climate experiences that just don't typically have a container in people's lives. Because we know that people don't talk about this stuff. And it's politically charged and all this other stuff. Even therapists, of course, will really appreciate this. Particularly therapists that are psychoanalytic or psychodynamic because that's a big part of their work is this kind of understanding how our early experiences, you know, affect our modern life and all this sort of stuff. So, yes, Janet, a couple of things…

But you personally, I know from talking to you, and knowing you a little bit you personally, you know, suffered through disasters. You know, flooding that destroys your property or losing your home. And you know what it's like to be in shock and bereft in that disaster mental health space where you just need to figure out the next step. And so one of the things I find interesting is another concept that's a little bit more deeper for the listener. But this idea of dialectics, right? One of the therapeutic things is to hold different sides of an issue. And not just collapse it in a simple way. And so, one of the dialectics I think that you talk about in your chapter is that we're kind of either in a disaster or not. Like all of us, either have been in a disaster, will be in a disaster or are not in a disaster. And inside of this continuum that we're in and, you know, not collapsing that, but sort of like, what I understand from your writing is that the people who are not actively in a disaster, it's their job to do some of this climate behavior change and adaptation mitigation to hold space for the people that are literally suffering suffering through the disaster. Who don't have time for that, because they're just surviving. Right. And I don't think you would have come to that without knowing what it's like to be in a disaster.

Lewis: I think you're right. I think you're right. Yeah. And this is, when I think of different forms of containment, thinking about our changed relationship to disaster. For me, this is cognitively contained, you know. Because I think most people have at the back of their minds, well, wait a minute, how on earth are we going to deal with this? So, you know, these increasing disasters? What's going to happen? Well, when we accept that we're in a new relationship with disaster, now, you know, disasters, no longer an outlier event. And none of us are immune from disasters. Although many people are on the frontlines experiencing much more than other people. You know, there are communities that are suffering and are at much greater risk. Butstill, with climate change, no one is immune. And so it makes sense for us to think about, okay, what's this new relationship with disaster.

And as you were saying, Thomas, I think we're either within or between disasters. And that's an important mindset to have. We're either within or between disasters, because that has important implications. The people who are within disasters or in the immediate aftermath of disasters, they're in no position to be working on large programs of mitigation and adaptation, right? If you're wringing muddy water out of your clothes, you're focusing on rebuilding your life. That's what you ought to be doing. So there is also going to be and will be even more, this sort of fluid exchange of roles. Where some people are in disasters or immediate aftermath of disasters, other people are between disasters. And so we know some broad strokes of what the future is going to have to look like in order to work. And one of the broad strokes is this, it's going to have to be more prosocial where the people who are between disasters are helping those who are within disasters. And the people who are between disasters are working on the larger programs of mitigation and adaptation. As I say, this is one broad stroke of what the future needs to look like to work, of course. And another broad stroke has to do with getting to carbon neutrality.

But another thing that's so very cognitively containing for me that I talk a lot about is emergence. You know, that's this characteristic of complex systems. I'm sure many listeners probably have heard about emergence. This characteristic of complex systems where the whole system can get to new ways of operating that can work. But we can't know ahead of time what all the features of those new patterns are going to be. That's part of the character of how complex systems work. So we can know these broad strokes. I think about the patterns in the future that can work. But we can't know for sure exactly what it's gonna look like and how to get there. And that uncertainty has to be accepted.

Pihkala: Yeah, yes. Thanks for opening all that up. And systems thinking has been referred to in this podcast. We haven't gone deep in it. But of course, one of the founding figures of any work on emotions caused by global problems is Joanna Macy. Who was very keen on systems thinking. And there's that legacy around. And you're also referring to this central concept of uncertainty, which is, of course, very intimately linked with anxiety in various ways. And one of the texts of yours that I very much liked was an article about climate dialectics. So would you like to say a bit about that? And perhaps open up the concept of dialectical thinking for the listener?

Lewis: Sure, sure. Well, a characteristic of this complexity, you know, climates a complex system. And now it's completely intertwined with human technology, human systems, human psychology, and human culture. And within complex systems, there's no way to understand everything that's going on. And climate gets called the hyper object. As I'm sure some listeners have heard. Where it's so distributed through space and time, that it's impossible to completely get a grip on it. To completely feel like you understand it. Because we're also inside of it. And with that complexity, as well as with the emotional challenges of climate change being such a threat, the mind naturally kind of divides things up. You know, we can't hold on to all of it at the same time. And no one can know it all at the same time. And so we'll often get presented with things that are seemingly opposed, that are actually both true. Or are both important anyway. Like a sense of hope and a sense of hopelessness.

I mean, it's important not to simplistically side with either one. But instead be willing to explore them both. And discover the space between them. Kind of keep enough space there to be able to reflect. And out of that reflection, new forms of hope have emerged. You know, there's a lot of talk and writing in the climate mental health literature about kinds of hope. Like realistic hope or radical hope that emerge from this grappling with important dialectics. Other important dialectics are individual agency and collective agency or nature as solace and nature as threat. And I mean, also, I think an overarching one that wasn't in that paper, but I'm seeing is even more overarching, has to do with focus on focus on the web of life, The biosphere, and focus on humanity. You know, actually, both are important. Because we're humans, and it has turned out that we're extremely influential. It is important to be able to focus on us too, as well as it is now being recognized that we have to have a focus on the entire web of life. These things are not mutually exclusive. That's what's really important with dialectical thinking is not allowing yourself to think in mutually exclusive terms. But instead, holding both things. And seeing what emerges as both are held.

Doherty: Yeah, yeah. I'm looking back at our podcast episodes. And often what we do in this podcast is we open up this kind of area. And then we hold .You know, one of our first episodes was on holding space. And then we had the episode on cynicism, you know, eco anxiety. So we open up these things. We had an episode on, you know, nature being, like you say, a solace, but also fear and dread that comes now into nature because of the change of seasons and things like that. So, it's a good reminder that we have to stay open to these things. And try to be as big as the world. You know, in the sense of holding a lot of these things. We can't hold everything but we strive for it. I guess. What should people do when they collapse and they can't hold it anymore? Then what happens?

Lewis: Well, okay. Well, first to recognize that's okay. I mean, as I said, you know, I cycle through. I think probably like most people every conceivable sort of feeling and state. And in relating to our realities and in coming more and more to terms with the extent of our realities. You know, in addition to climate change, you know, we're also dealing with what gets called a meta crisis or multi crisis or poly crisis. And, you know, I have a cognitive understanding that this is all sort of one crisis. It's about our current ways of coming up against their limitations. And it's good for us to be recognizing that. But also, it's pretty clear that we're in for a very rocky road as well as having to deal with so much suffering and tragedy. And so it's important that that be validated, you know, and accepted. We have to accept where we are in order to change. This is this sort of paradox in all psychotherapy. Also work at opening the space. You know, so, if someone finds themselves kind of collapsed, okay, what kinds of containment can be brought in? I mean, you mentioned Joanna Macy's work Panu.

And I think one enormous contribution of hers is the sort of narrative containment that she brings in with saying, okay, we're in a huge transition. This is a great turning point. Bringing in the story that someone can identify with. That helps to open the space. Leaning on spiritual practice, you know. As I mentioned earlier, it can open the space. The relationships with other people and with nature, can open up space for us. Being involved “agentically.” Just working on things is a kind of containment too. And then there are these forms of cognitive containment, you know. Knowing that, okay, we're part of this complex system, we can't see it all. But the fact that it's so complex, actually means that no matter what direction someone is coming from, no matter what their particular heartbreaks, or talents, or spheres of influence are, there's a role. There's an important role to be played, you know. Because no one can hold this all ,we're forced to work with each other. I mean, we're actually forced to grow up in a way. Forced to accept uncertainty. Forced to work with other people.

Doherty: Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Let me just add just for the listener, because just make sure. Just to simplify this a little bit, because I want this to come across to people. So this container we can choose different containers, depending on how we're feeling on a given day. What's useful for us? So like, for some people, I need to be able to tell a story, and someone to hear it and share my story. That's how I contain it. For some people, it's, I need to kind of make sense of it. So I need to intellectually get a mental model that helps me to make sense of this. And then there's the relationship. I need to be in a relationship with someone. I can't be isolated, right. So even just relationships of any kind form the container. And then taking some action, whatever, it's small scale, that's that agentic, right. So my action becomes a container, right? And then spiritual container, which is my larger sense of meaning and things bigger than myself, that becomes a container.

So we have essentially several containers that we should have sort of in our tool belt of coping. And then as you say, I think, you know, different things are going to be what an individual most effectively leans on. But yeah, there are all sorts of means of containment. Ways to bear what's difficult to bear. And to have enough space. Containment also provides space, to be able to think clearly about what to do and to make choices.

Doherty: So physical containment, like breathing and relaxing our body. But what are you thinking about, Panu? I know you have a lot of interest in this area.

Pihkala: Yeah, there's a lot here. The spaciousness of uncertainty. For whoever used that phrase. But there's more space there. And of course, the often mentioned Joanna Macy also wrote about this. And that's one possible form. Cognitive reframing. You know, trying to think about things in a new light. So, uncertainty can be very painful, but it also gives more space. But what I'm most thinking of here is the pendulum And these movements. That's closely integrated into the process model of eco anxiety and ecological grief that I've worked a lot on in the previous years. And emphasizing the importance of fluctuation and mood changes. Here, you do also Janet. and I don't think that the movement is very often regular as in the pendulum of a clock. But I like the visual metaphor that there is movement. And that's part of life. And trying to accept the movements instead of going into binary thinking. So I think that's very important for coping also.

Lewis: Yeah, that's so important. You know, we each contain multitudes. You know, we have all these different states of mind. And, I mean, it's sort of like the larger reality, that there's no way to get a completely coherent grip on how it all works. It's just too complex. That's the way it is with the mind too. And so these different states, you know, just like we have to accept that okay, different people are going to be doing different things. And I won't be able to be in touch with all of it. Well, we also have to accept that we have these different states of mind. And, you know, be willing to explore them without feeling as though no, I have to have some overarching thing that works all the time. You know, that's just not the way it is. A part of how we're moving forward is because of all the internal dialectical processes as the different states we're in at different times are kind of in relation to each other. And we figure more out.

Doherty: Yeah. Pendulum. Kind of the waves we talked about. I know in our episode we talk about riding the waves. On some days we're up in terms of inspiration, taking action, being with a group of people that we like. We're contained. Some days were really contained. And we feel good. And we got some wind in our sails. And other days, you know, we got the upside down pyramid. And everything's impinging on us. And we don't have any containers. We feel very small and insecure and inadequate. And so we ride those waves. Yeah.

Lewis: That's to be accepted too.

Doherty: Yeah, there's a great article in just today's New York Times on this idea of a protopia. It's neither a dystopia... It's very fitting for our discussion, because it's neither a utopia where everything is all taken care of, nor is it a dystopia where everything is terrible. A protopia is a place where there's gradual, progressive change, progress, and prototypes. And it's kind of bringing out an idea that was written about over a decade ago in a technology book. But it's neat how some of these ideas come out a little early. And we don't quite see the benefit of these ideas. And then later on, it comes through.

So a lot of this work, even the work that you've written, Janet, like the dialectic stuff. When you wrote it, people were like, oh, this is kind of interesting. You know, but now people really know exactly what you're talking about because they're living it, you know. So it's really neat. I know what I struggle with. And I think a lot of people struggle with and one of the dialectics here is between this kind of ethical, well being that you talk about. This is pro social, and then the kind of let's build the wall. The kind of authoritarianism. This kind of really dark, harsh political movement that's happening around the world as well. I think that's a larger dialectic we're all living through now. And there's no one answer there. But we try to chart our path through that.

Lewis: Right. We have to, as you say, just chart our path through it. At the same time, there is a cognitive container in understanding that in a huge transition like this, there are regressions. There are people doubling down on things that no longer completely serve us. And it can look, you know, in addition to it being so destructive, it can look really absurd. There's a cultural psychiatrist, Charles Johnston, who has written a lot about this. So there can be this larger cognitive container for understanding. Okay, of course, this is happening, right? Of course, this is happening. We're in such a big transition, that there are going to be regressions, breakdowns. And you know, it's incredibly sad. There's suffering. There's tragedy. But it also makes sense, given the extent of the enormous transition that we're in, that's not just about carbon. I mean, it means having to rework so many systems. And as I said, coming to more pro social ways of being. So it's huge.

Doherty: Yeah. And then I'll say one more thing, and I'll leave it to Panu to wrap us up. But, you know, I think it also depends on how close we're looking at the present. Because as we zoom out, we see this larger trend of change. But when we get really close, it's much more erratic. So you know, we're decarbonizing our economy and our world while at the same time now we see they're still, you know, drilling new wells in Alaska. But it's part of this larger trend. And that's, I think, another I'm not sure if it's a dialectic or what it would be, but it's the ability to zoom out to see the larger trend. That's why I think it is intellectually helpful.

Lewis: It's helpful. Without sugarcoating the suffering and the tragedy, that's the part where, you know, we have to work at holding both aspects of the dialectic. And not collapsing into either one.

Pihkala: Sometimes it all comes together. That's another dialectical thought, for example, right? The medieval philosopher Nicholas of Cusa used the image that, you know, a circle and a straight line seem to be completely opposites. But if you zoom in long enough for the … circle, you can actually see a straight line if you go near, near enough to the circle. So that was one way to illustrate this idea that sometimes things that seem opposites to us, can actually be profoundly interlinked. That could lead us to quite complex philosophical discussions about non-duality. And let's not go there at this time. But I've greatly enjoyed talking with you.

Lewis: Another time, Panu!

Pihkala: Exactly, exactly. So it's been a pleasure. And thanks for reminding both us and the listeners of the possible coexistence of many things in life, including both joy and sadness, you know, amidst all these conditions.

Lewis: Yes.

Doherty: Thanks so much, Janet. I think, you know, this episode is going to be great for therapists who really know a lot of the concepts and see how you use these concepts in a climate context. And it's also just good for all of us listeners, to think about these new tools for our own life. So we're going to wrap up. I've got to go into my day. Beginning my day here, which includes more work along these lines. I know Panu, you've got the end of your evening and a full day you've already worked. So you're going to hopefully move towards some time with your family. Janet, what's the rest of your day hold for you?

Lewis: I've got a work afternoon with patients.

Doherty: Okay, so you're going to be in the trenches with people. So I wish you well. And we'd love to chat with you again. I think we could easily go a lot longer. But this is a great start. So you both are well. And listeners you take care of yourselves.

Lewis: Bye bye.

Pihkala: Bye bye. Take care.

Doherty: The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com