Clare Pitt and Kimberley Norris (Uni Tasmania) warn climate change creates new and intensifies existing mental health problems, from psychiatric disorders, such as depression through to subclinical distress. The problem is, helping sufferers is not required in ANZ postgrad psychology programs.
The authors surveyed postgrad psychology students and course coordinators to find most are alarmed about climate change and nearly all believe it will impact their clients’ mental health over the next 20 years but that psychologists do not feel prepared to help people.
The authors report two key responses:
- dealing with climate change should be on the curriculum, which should include, Indigenous knowledges, disaster mental health, the interaction between climate-related concern and race/socio-economic status.
- time and resources are barriers to including it: students added that it isn’t a priority for some older staff
the take-out: “these results demonstrate limited training is offered in this area in postgraduate psychology programs despite it being a growing area of concern and being seen as a critical issue, potentially resulting in an evidence practice gap and a workforce ill-equipped to respond to projected future client needs”
