Psychedelics in the Age of Eco-Anxiety

As more people become aware of the mounting impact of humanity on the biosphere, and the loss of species and changing climate that stems from it, eco-anxiety (or eco-distress) is on the rise. This has been described as a “chronic fear of environmental doom”. As our impact on the planet grows, followed by awareness of this impact in its wake, rates of eco-anxiety are only projected to increase. We also have a lack of interventions with which to address it.

Eco-anxiety should not be pathologised as a form of mental illness with symptoms that should be simply suppressed; rather, it should be acknowledged as a healthy canary in the coal mine response and indicator of the need for system change based on an accurate appraisal of the severity of the ecological crisis. However, in some circumstances, such as when people feel unsupported, isolated, powerless, and lacking a sense of agency – and among those whose work results in greater awareness and knowledge of environmental threats – eco-anxiety can exert a deeper impact on mental health and well-being.

Eco-anxiety is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, linked to a wide range of emotions, mental states, and psychosocial phenomena, and there is likely to be considerable variation in the expression of symptoms between individuals. It may include experiences of anger, sadness, grief, irritability, depression, anxiety, emotional numbness, guilt, worry, frustration, and fear, in addition to feelings of loss and uncertainty. It may encompass feelings of powerlessness and helplessness, which can manifest in feelings of paralysis and apathy due to being overwhelmed by the scale of environmental issues, inhibiting action from being undertaken to potentially address them. Eco-anxiety has also been associated with ‘solastalgia’, a form of homesickness felt in the vicinity of one’s own home due to environmental changes resulting from climate change and biodiversity loss, resulting in it being less recognisable and familiar to the inhabitants living there.

In its more severe forms or among more vulnerable populations, eco-anxiety can be debilitating and overwhelming, and is associated with cognitive and behavioural impairments, insomnia, panic attacks, and obsessive thinking. It has been linked to stress, anxiety, depression, lower self-referred mental health, functional impairment, diminished well-being, a reluctance to have children, and suicidal ideation in young people. Some investigators have explored the concept of ‘pre-traumatic stress’ to reflect the anticipatory distress that reflects anxiety over the increasing severity of the environmental issues we are facing.

Environmental issues such as climate change are already considered to have significant impacts on the social, economic, and environmental determinants of mental health, with such impacts projected to become ever more significant in time. Given that environmental issues, including climate change and biodiversity loss, are already having impacts and that these issues are generating a growing sense of worry and concern among the public, the psychological impact of this is likely to loom larger in time. Despite increasing calls for mental health professionals to raise awareness of eco-anxiety and training, and a growing demand for therapeutic support, there is very little literature to support specific therapeutic interventions for eco-anxiety.

While there is a lack of research work to demonstrate effective eco-anxiety interventions, a number of recent reviews highlight a number of promising themes. One review of eco-anxiety interventions identified five core themes that appear to show promise. These are: fostering inner resilience; encouraging positive action; facilitating social connection and emotional support through group work; connection with nature; and practitioner education and inner work. These findings share overlap with another review, which identified problem-focused action, emotion management, and enhancing social connections as having beneficial effects on a wide range of outcomes such as individual well-being,  group cohesion and pro-environmental behaviour.

Another more recent review of eco-anxiety interventions highlighted the potential of a number of holistic approaches, including ecotherapy, self-care and resilience building, and encouraging pro-environmental behaviours, aside from a range of therapeutic modalities. Other papers highlight the need to process, regulate, and express difficult emotions, with many studies emphasising that a combination of emotional work and participatory action is important for addressing problematic eco-anxiety. Psychedelics may hold relevance when considering a number of these themes.

The importance of the expression of emotion is a common theme highlighted by many investigators. Eco-anxiety brings up difficult and complex emotions which must be encountered, experienced, and processed. Around half of all emotion-focused interventions examined in one review focused on grief processing. The repression of emotions has been suggested as a cause of maladaptive responses to environmental crises. Among those who may be exposed to more distressing information about the reality we face, such as conservationists and environmental educators, a lack of emotional support in the workplace and a lack of training about emotional skills may exacerbate this risk.

Psychedelics can influence how emotions are experienced and processed in a number of ways, and this may have implications for those suffering from debilitating emotional overwhelm associated with eco-anxiety. Psychedelics are known for eliciting an ambivalent emotional state, with individuals under the effect of psychedelics potentially experiencing multiple emotions simultaneously. This capacity of psychedelics may be beneficial for the processing of emotions linked to eco-anxiety, which can sometimes include experiencing paradoxical emotions or various emotions manifesting together in a plurality of compositions. 

Psychedelics also reliably elicit emotional breakthrough experiences, which are linked to emotional catharsis and related to and accompanied by personal and interpersonal insights. Together with the mystical peak experiences psychedelics can evoke, these emotional breakthrough experiences and the accompanying psychological insights have been identified as key predictors of a positive therapeutic response following a psychedelic experience.

Another important mediator underlying the therapeutic power of psychedelics appears to be a shift from the avoidance of unpleasant emotional states to adaptive acceptance, the ability to allow internal events and content to unfold without attempting to control them. Experiential avoidance (an attempt to evade, suppress or alter internal emotions, thoughts, memories, and body sensations) may exacerbate the experience of eco-anxiety. Psychedelic therapy has been found to reduce experiential avoidance, which in turn has been linked to positive clinical outcomes. It has been proposed that such reductions in experiential avoidance may act as a transdiagnostic mechanism mediating the positive outcomes associated with psychedelic therapy.

There is a strong link between eco-anxiety and the experience of grief, with a review of interventions identifying grief as a central emotional component of eco-anxiety, and illuminating and supporting the grief processes of individuals relating to feelings of environmental loss, was highlighted as a way of engaging with eco-anxiety. Psychedelics may influence grief processing. One study found that ceremonial use of ayahuasca reduced the severity of grief, with acceptance and decentering identified as mediators that underpinned the improvement of grief symptoms. While the grief in this study was interpersonal in nature, this shift in grief processing could benefit those grieving for a wider conception of environmental loss.

The capacity of psychedelics to enhance psychological flexibility may have implications for mitigating some aspects of eco-anxiety, as psychological inflexibility is a risk factor for eco-anxiety symptomatology and associated emotional, functional, or cognitive impairment, particularly among those indicating a greater concern about climate change. Psychological flexibility has been linked to the capacity to pursue valued life aims despite the presence of distress, while being considered a key contributor to health. It has been associated with resilience, adaptive emotional regulation, and improved clinical outcomes related to PTSD, depression, and suicidality.

The therapeutic modality of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) places an emphasis on promoting acceptance and facilitating emotional regulation, helping cultivate psychological resilience. ACT has been highlighted as a promising therapeutic approach when paired with targeted psychedelic interventions, and its potential utility in mitigating eco-anxiety symptomatology has also been highlighted. This suggests that therapeutic approaches such as ACT may be well-suited to treating problematic eco-anxiety in combination with psychedelic therapy.

Psychedelic usage has been associated with fostering sustained increases in mindfulness-related capacities, with mindfulness having been strongly linked to resilience. Previous studies have found ayahuasca usage to be associated with higher levels of decentering, an aspect of mindfulness. Decentering involves a non-judgmental and accepting attitude towards inner psychological content, having been defined as “the realisation that thoughts, feelings, and reactions are transitory patterns of mental activity, that they are not necessarily true representations of the self and events”. Decentering has been associated with mediating reductions in anxiety and depression, and it may be helpful in mitigating some of the emotional turbulence associated with the experience of eco-anxiety.

A potential link between eco-anxiety and death anxiety has been highlighted by investigators in numerous fields, including sociological, psychosocial, and psychodynamic researchers. It has been proposed that death anxiety underlies eco-anxiety and that cultivating death acceptance may bolster psychological resilience in the wake of ecological crises. Existential anxiety or angst is underpinned by feelings of dread or panic that can arise when people confront the limitations of their existence, such as thoughts about mortality and death, insignificance of the self, and life purpose and meaning. It is relevant to the experience of eco-anxiety, as both our experience of it and our mortality require acknowledging and adjusting to unavoidable and inevitable aspects of life. 

Psychedelics have been found to be effective in reducing death anxiety and in enhancing death acceptance and transcendence. The effects of psychedelics on death anxiety can be sustained. One follow-up study of individuals administered a single dose of psilocybin for the treatment of existential distress associated with a terminal cancer diagnosis reported significant reductions in death anxiety sustained 4.5 years later after a single experience with psilocybin. These findings imply that psychedelics may help mitigate some of the existential angst that underpins the eco-anxiety, which can be considered to be a more diffuse, non-local expression of existential distress in comparison to a terminal cancer diagnosis.

Numerous proposed or trialled eco-anxiety interventions involve group work. Groups can be a helpful container for emotional processing, and difficult emotions such as anxiety, guilt, and loss may become more manageable once shared, with the experience of grief for many cultures being communal as opposed to solitary, as it tends to be in Western culture. Groups can also galvanise action and bring social connection, helping connect one’s inner experience of eco-anxiety to the experience of others. Sharing experiences of powerlessness, hopelessness, overwhelm, and fear with others who feel the same may aid in the normalisation, validation, and processing of these feelings, providing individuals with the opportunity to learn from them. 

In Indigenous contexts, psychedelics have long been used in group contexts, in a ritualised or ceremonial fashion, and group formats are widespread in naturalistic contexts of Western psychedelic use. The socially constructive function of psychedelics has developed across Indigenous cultures through ritualised forms of consumption, where they tend to be used in communal contexts. Social bonds and ecological relationships tend to form important features of such usage. This stands in marked contrast to clinical psychedelic usage, which tends to prioritise a much more individualistic approach to psychedelic administration, where individuals tend to be more cut off from other people and other beings. Psychedelics used in group settings may yield some additional therapeutic benefits in comparison to administration in individualistic contexts, having the potential to facilitate collective meaning-making and a sense of affiliation as part of an enhanced sense of social connectedness or ‘communitas’.

One notable exception to the individualistic psychedelic therapy approach was a pilot study assessing the capacity of psilocybin combined with group therapy before and after the experience to treat demoralisation in a cohort of long-term AIDS survivors suffering from demoralisation and traumatic loss. This approach was found to be effective, with a qualitative assessment of some of this cohort revealing two key themes of transformation: participants reported a shift from habitual, evaluative modes of processing to more mindful, experiential modes of processing, and being freed from emotionally avoidant tendencies. 

Participants were able to process and release previously disowned feelings (e.g. grief, shame) while better accessing relational and self-transcendent feelings (e.g. joy, gratitude, love, care, compassion). The sessions also supported processes of meaning-making and realisation of post-traumatic growth in psychological, relational, and spiritual aspects of people’s lives, facilitating integration of past traumas and a shift from a “trauma-dominant” to “growth-dominant” perspective. Findings were suggestive that administering adjunctive group therapy can enhance trauma processing by reinforcing feelings of safety, trust, belonging, and social cohesion. The implications of these findings may also hold relevance for helping people process the emotional burden of eco-anxiety, and these benefits may extend to and be amplified by shared, group-based psychedelic experiences as well as group therapy approaches on either side of the psychedelic session.

Psychedelic group sessions could then be paired with group work following the session, potentially with the same individuals who shared in the psychedelic experience together. Not only could this aid in integration while bolstering connection, but it could also provide further opportunities to express challenging emotions that may have come up during the psychedelic session. This group work could take the form of the late eco-philosopher Joanna Macy’s “The Work That Reconnects”, which has shown promise in helping people process the difficult emotions associated with eco-anxiety. The experiential work follows a spiral sequence flowing through four stages beginning with gratitude, then honouring one’s pain for the world, seeing with new eyes, and finally, going forth. While environmental issues such as climate change and biodiversity are a shared, collective stressor, themes of isolation have emerged in how it is experienced by individuals, which may exacerbate its negative impact. Group work and collective action can help buffer against this.

Relevant to the application of psychedelics, one noteworthy intervention made use of group exploration of dreams. The study centred on this intervention was notable in being one of only two empirical research studies identified that directly evaluated interventions to assess their effect on eco-anxious individuals in a review of eco-anxiety interventions. The intervention made use of group processing of eco-anxiety through discussion around participants' daily experiences and concerns, in addition to their nightly dream content in relation to their emotional experience of climate change. Inclusion of dreams was seen as useful in aiding the processing of difficult emotions, while helping elucidate previously hidden or overlooked dimensions of individuals' inner lives, contributing to the group discussions. This sharing of dream content also helped facilitate in-depth discussions of subject matter that may have otherwise been avoided or repressed, and cooperative group discussions allowed participants to construct understandings based on the experiences and insights of themselves and others. 

Participation was stated by participants as having therapeutic benefits, helping address issues of burnout, despair, and isolation, and the opportunity to discuss the collective issue of climate change in a safe and free-ranging discussion group context was considered vital to positive outcomes. Psychedelics elicit a dreamlike state of consciousness in the waking state, with the added benefit of a shared altered state experience and the potential feelings of kinship and connection this may engender.

A review of eco-anxiety interventions found that over a quarter reported on interventions solely focused on helping direct individuals towards fostering a connection with nature. A connection with nature has been proposed as a potential resilience factor to climate anxiety. However, the relationship between nature connectedness and eco-anxiety is complex. Those individuals expressing a deeper connection to the natural world can unsurprisingly be more sensitive to its destruction and degradation. Aspects of nature relatedness tied to self-identification with nature and a concern for conserving nature have been linked to increased depression, anxiety, and stress. Such findings have been corroborated by further research reporting an association between nature connectedness and greater levels of worry and anxiety about climate change. 

However, nature connectedness has also been associated with psychological resilience, well-being, lower levels of anxiety, and adaptive emotion regulation strategies, which in turn predict resilience to stress. Nature connectedness is also strongly predictive of pro-environmental behaviours, which can buffer against aspects of eco-anxiety. Nature connectedness is also predictive of a predisposition to spend time outdoors in nature, which has been linked to a broad range of benefits to mood, cognition, and well-being, as well as the promotion of psychological restoration. One way of potentially framing these mixed findings around nature connectedness and eco-anxiety is to consider the different aspects of nature connectedness, which encompasses emotional, cognitive, and experiential elements. An emotional or cognitive connection to nature may increase eco-anxiety, while an experiential connection may help buffer against some of the emotional turbulence associated with it.

There is a growing body of evidence demonstrating a positive association between psychedelic usage and nature connectedness and positive changes to relationships with nature and the environment. Psychedelic use has also been associated with greater time spent in nature and has been found to be predictive of pro-environmental behaviour. Psilocybin may have a particular propensity for fostering nature connectedness, with one study assessing retrospective psychedelic usage of different types of psychedelics reporting that only psilocybin was a reliable positive predictor of nature relatedness.

For those individuals with eco-anxiety but lacking a strong experiential connection to nature, it is possible that psychedelic therapy could support the development of a new relationship with nature, including new daily habits that are protective against the hopelessness and powerlessness that eco-anxiety can bring. A psychedelic session could be an opportunity to re-engage with the beauty and power of nature, and the restorative powers of the outdoors to soothe our nervous system and renew our sense of being part of a wider natural community that makes up the web of life, rather than being alone.

The reviews of eco-anxiety emphasise the importance of undertaking positive environmental actions. This is something that the experience of eco-anxiety can trigger, and while facing and processing the turbulent emotions associated with eco-anxiety appears important, undertaking positive committed action also appears key. Pro-environmental behaviour has been linked to mental well-being, and it can act as a buffer against problematic eco-anxiety symptomatology, including the symptoms of major depressive disorder sometimes associated with it. 

However, not all pro-environmental actions are equal in either their overall positive impact on the environment or the mental health of the individual undertaking the actions. Active pro-nature actions encompass ecological restoration and habitat creation actions that support biodiversity. These may include activities such as tree planting, wildlife gardening, participation in nature-based citizen science projects, and assisting in the management of nature reserves and public spaces with wildlife in mind. Such activities are more likely to elicit broader benefits to the individual and the wider environment than passive, positive, and more indoor-oriented inactions associated with lowering one’s energy, resource, or carbon footprint.

Participating in nature protective actions as part of a group can increase connection, hope, and empowerment more than taking action individually, and undertaking such actions in such groups may work well as a post-psychedelic integration practice, helping bolster social connectedness and nature connectedness following a psychedelic experience, while yielding broader benefits to both the individual and the wider environment.

Joanna Macy’s “Active Hope” could provide a useful framework that would pair well with psychedelic experiences, which may help translate experiential insights and shifts into action, helping catalyse individual agency to step into service on nature’s behalf. It is a practice-oriented approach of facing interconnected global crises (ecological, social, economic) – otherwise known as the polycrisis – involving three key steps. These consist of identifying what one hopes for (defining the direction one wants to move toward and the values one wants to see expressed); taking a clear view of reality (of the magnitude of the mess we’re in); and taking steps to move in that direction (engaging in action to help bring about that vision, which in turn fosters resilience and purpose). Active Hope recognises that human and planetary health are fundamentally entwined, and encompasses a conscious choice to act on behalf of life, regardless of the perceived probability of success.

Some groups, due to their knowledge, awareness, and emotional ties to the natural world – including climate change and environmental researchers, conservationists, environmental educators, environmental activists, and naturalists – may be more at risk of eco-anxiety and associated burnout. It has been suggested that being part of a community of like-minded people who share the same values can help people who may be at more risk from debilitating eco-anxiety. Group psychedelic sessions with follow-up support and discussion groups could be held to explore whether this approach might benefit these at-risk populations.

It has been suggested that participation in creative problem-solving pertaining to the ecological crisis could help alleviate distress. Here, too, psychedelics may have a role to play, potentially assisting in shifting modes of creative thinking and providing a fertile terrain for the generation of new perspectives and insights, helping facilitate problem-solving. This is something that could be explored by bringing together groups of environmental researchers and conservationists.

As part of her PhD research, Isabel Santis investigated the effect of psychedelics on the values, beliefs, and actions of people experiencing eco-anxiety. She interviewed a number of people suffering from eco-anxiety about how their psychedelic usage had influenced their experience of eco-anxiety. She stated:

I have noticed that there can be an increase in eco-anxiety in people following psychedelic use due to personalizing the ecological and planetary crisis. At the same time, there seems to be a paradoxical reduction in the distress produced by eco-anxiety, by allowing people to achieve distance between the situation as a result of achieving a "planetary view", which often seemed to engender a sense of equanimity. Most interview subjects reported seeing the planet from space, and understanding that all beings are part of a great tree of life. And even more intriguingly, some participants also report a greater sense of agency and an internalized locus of control, manifesting in pro-environmental behavior at the personal and local, rather than global and societal levels.

If we can acknowledge eco-anxiety as a healthy response to a precarious situation, it could be the beginning of a wake-up call for our species, while having the potential to act as a catalyst for widescale positive transformation. Psychedelics could have a helpful role to play in allowing us to better handle and adapt to the growing psychological burden imposed by eco-anxiety.

Sam is one of our community bloggers here at Chemical Collective. If you’re interested in joining our blogging team and getting paid to write about subjects you’re passionate about, please reach out to Sam via email at [email protected]