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Introductory Course for Climate Aware Therapy


  • Climate Psychology Alliance North America , Ltd. USA (map)

This curriculum is fully enrolled - Please check our website's CPA-NA sponsored event listings for upcoming additional scheduling.

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Introductory Course for Climate Aware Therapy

About this event

In a joint effort between Climate Psychology Alliance- North America and Climate Psychiatry Alliance, we are offering a seven-session online course for mental health clinicians to provide an overview and grounding in the complex factors at play in the climate crisis and embedded social injustices, including ways to work with our own responses and those of our clients in climate-aware therapy. We will cover concepts at the macro level, focusing on a complex- systems understanding; the mezzo level, where we consider sociocultural factors and bring in an important Indigenous perspective; and the micro level, where we work with the clinician’s emotional reactions to the climate emergency as well as ways to address clinical issues in the consulting room and beyond. The final class will involve an opportunity for in-depth small group case discussions led by the instructors.

Class size will be limited to facilitate experiential participation and discussion throughout the course.

Course learning objectives:

1. Participants will be able to summarize several climate science realities and concepts, including mitigation and adaptation in the climate and ecological crisis.

2. Participants will recognize various sociopolitical factors and inequities embedded in climate impacts.

3. Participants will be able to distinguish between social and cultural factors that impede and those that promote facing and intervening in climate and environmental harms.

4. Participants will identify two ways that recognizing their own emotional reactions to the climate crisis can be helpful as part of providing climate-aware therapy.

5. Participants will be able to categorize three types of climate-related traumatic stress.

6. Participants will identify Indigenous ways of practicing reciprocity and will be able to summarize how that can facilitate mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

7. Participants will be able to describe therapeutic attitudes found beneficial in working with climate distress.

8. Participants will be able to identify ways that an understanding of complex system functioning can provide a source of emotional containment for clients.

Dates: Sundays, September 10 and 17; October 15 and 22; November 5, 12, and 19, 2023

Time: 7-8:30 pm ET/ 4-5:30 pm PT; final class will be from 7-9 pm ET

Fee: $350 for professionals; limited number of reduced fee slots ($175) for students/hardship situations will be available (please email info@climatepsychology.us for request and discount code). We are also offering APA-approved CE credits for most licenses through CE.com for an additional $45 continuing education processing fee (please see information below).

Please contact info@climatepsychology.us if you are interested in receiving continuing education for this course.

Cancellations: Please email info@climatepsychology.us for requests.

Grievances: All grievances must be in writing and sent to info@climatepsychology.us and will be responded to within 14 business days.

ADA Accommodations: Closed captioning can be provided upon request.

CE credits: CE-Classes.com is the provider of CE credits.

11 CE credits can be provided. Licensed professionals should contact their regulatory board to determine course approval. Certificates are awarded online after completion of the workshop. Participants print their own certificate after registering at CE-Classes.com, entering a keycode, and completing an evaluation form.

CE-Classes.com is approved by:

•     The American Psychological Association (APA) CE-Classes.com is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. CE-Classes.com maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

•     Florida Certification Board

•     The Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling Provider #852 BAP-Expires 3/31/2025

•     The California Board of Behavioral Sciences. The California Board of Behavioral Sciences, BBS, recognizes relevant course work/training that has been approved by nationally recognized certifying bodies, such as APA, to satisfy renewal requirements.

•     California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals (CCAPP) Provider Number OS-12-174-0225 Expires 02-2025

•     The Texas Board of Social Work Examiners – CE-Classes.com meets the requirements for acceptable continuing education

•     The Texas Board of Professional Counselors – CE-Classes.com meets the requirements for acceptable continuing education

•     Massachusetts Authorization Number: (TBD)

•     Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist Board - Approval from a state licensing board for counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists is accepted by the OH CSWMFTB.

•     New York Social Work Board – CE-Classes.com is recognized by the New York State Education

Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0120.

•     New York Mental Health Practitioners Board CE-Classes.com, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0260.

•     New York Psychology Board CE-Classes.com, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0211

•     The Florida Board of Nursing (CE Provider #: 50-4896) Expires 10/31/2024 Do not send certificates to the Florida Board of Nursing. You must keep this certificate for 4 years.

•     The California Board of Registered Nursing. CEP 15647 Expires 11/30/2024.

•     This course is NOT available for NBCC credit

•     This training does not offer ASWB ACE credit to social workers.

Course learning objectives:

1. Participants will be able to summarize several climate science realities and concepts, including mitigation and adaptation in the climate and ecological crisis.

2. Participants will recognize various sociopolitical factors and inequities embedded in climate impacts.

3. Participants will be able to distinguish between social and cultural factors that impede and those that promote facing and intervening in climate and environmental harms.

4. Participants will identify two ways that recognizing their own emotional reactions to the climate crisis can be helpful as part of providing climate-aware therapy.

5. Participants will be able to categorize three types of climate-related traumatic stress.

6. Participants will identify Indigenous ways of practicing reciprocity and will be able to summarize how that can facilitate mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

7. Participants will be able to describe therapeutic attitudes found beneficial in working with climate distress.

8. Participants will be able to identify ways that an understanding of complex system functioning can provide a source of emotional containment for clients.

Faculty:

Janet Lewis, M.D. is a private practice psychiatrist in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester, a founding member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance, and co-chair of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry’s Climate Committee . Her presentations and papers on climate mental health have been given to professional, community and religious groups, and appeared in Psychodynamic Psychiatry, and the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. She teaches a climate seminar series for psychiatric residents and established a continuously meeting climate change study /support /consultation therapists’ group in Ithaca NY.

Elizabeth Allured, Psy.D is a psychologist/psychoanalyst who co-founded the Climate Psychology Alliance – North America, currently serving on its Executive Committee. She has been writing and publishing papers on the intersection of mental health and the environment since 2007, and presenting nationally, internationally, and locally. She has held workshops for clinicians and university students in clinical aspects of climate psychology, and the development of emotional resilience. She has been quoted in the media, and is in practice on Long Island, N.Y. She is on the faculty of the Adelphi University Postgraduate Programs in the Adult Clinical and School Psychology programs.

Mary Hasbah Roessel, M.D. , DLFAPA, is a Navajo psychiatrist practicing in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She grew up on the Navajo nation with her grandfather, a revered medicine man. She worked with Navajo medicine people to work on ways to integrate Navajo cultural concepts for behavioral health staff. She has given presentations on Indigenous knowledge and climate change and wrote a chapter in the book: Groundswell Indigenous knowledge and a call to action for climate change. Her chapter: “Essential Elements of Change”, focuses on living within two worlds—Indigenous and Western cultures in this climate crisis.

Wendy Greenspun, Ph.D. is a psychologist/psychoanalyst on the Executive Committee of the Climate Psychology Alliance- North America, and also heads the clinical support subcommittee. She is on faculty at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, the Adelphi University Postgraduate Program in Marriage and Couples Therapy and the William Alanson White Couple Therapy Training and Education Program. She has published and presented papers, workshops, and courses for clinicians on working with climate distress. She provides workshops on building emotional resilience for climate activists, high school, and university students. She has run groups (climate cafes) for processing climate emotions. She is in private practice in New York City.

Edward Joseph Neidhardt, M.D., LFAPA, is a psychiatrist in private practice in Santa Fe, N.M. He worked with Navajo Medicine Men and together with his wife, a Navajo Psychiatrist, developed ways to integrate Western Medicine and Navajo Healing. He wrote and co-edited “Groundswell: Indigenous Knowledge and a Call to Action for Climate Change” with his daughter, Nicole Neidhardt. He presented at COP26. His recent publications include “Indigenous Knowledge Is Crucial to Confronting Climate Change and Supports Psychiatric Practice” Psychiatric News, February 2022. He is a passionate ally for Indigenous people in addressing mental health and climate change.

Conflict of interest statement:

There is no known commercial support for this program and no known conflicts of interests for this workshop.

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