Saturday Workshop Series: Learning to Treat Eco-Anxiety, Leslie Davenport, LMFT

Leslie Davenport, LMFT 

Many Americans are pervaded by an ambient anxiety triggered by our changing climate, including those who haven’t experienced a climate disaster. The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has tracked American's concerns about the impacts of climate change, finding last year that 69% of Americans worry about global warming, and 49% believe it will harm them personally. This marks a sharp increase in concern from just five years ago, a rapid and large-scale emotional shift. A new clinical vocabulary is emerging to capture the lived experience of climate-related distress:

• Solastalgia: The feeling of longing or being “homesick” as your familiar environment changes around you.
• Pre-traumatic stress disorder: Anticipatory anxiety about climate disasters that are projected to occur in the future.
• Ecological grief: Intense feelings of grief as people suffer climate-related losses of ecosystems, landscapes, and human and animal life.
• Eco-anxiety: An experience of dread, helplessness, and/or existential anxiety triggered by the seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change.

While these terms aren’t yet widely incorporated in our professional vernacular, the emotional states they describe are pervasive. It’s time that our field develop skills to treat climate-induced anxiety, depression, and trauma. Emotional distress triggered by climate change is already showing up in our practices and will only increase in the coming years.

This workshop will provide an overview of climate-induced emotional distress, and clinical interventions to add to your therapeutic toolbox for treating eco-anxiety.

Leslie Davenport, LMFT is a founding member of the Institute for Health & Healing, one of the nations’ first and largest hospital-based integrative medicine programs. Her 25 years of medical experience developing an empowering and collaborative approach to resolving crisis has informed her climate psychology model. Leslie has unique qualifications in the Body-Mind-Spirit field. Dance critic, Allan Ulrich, reviewed Leslie as a professional dancer endowed with “A superior sense of balance…and powers of communication that set her apart from the herd.” As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in practice for more than twenty years, she understands the health and cultural impact of thoughts and emotions. And a passion for the mystery of the human spirit drew her to become an ordained interfaith minister in 1984. As an advocate for the role of depth psychology in integrative medicine and climate change work, Leslie has braided her expertise with body-mind-spirit into an approach that recognizes the role of meaning and mindful presence as an integral part of living an ecoharmonious life.

MARIN CAMFT'S CE POLICIES

• Marin CAMFT encourages those who attend its events to respect the fact that some individuals may have allergies to fragrances and pet dander. We ask that you refrain from introducing these elements into our meeting room. Registered service animals are welcome, of course. 
• Information: For more information about Marin CAMFT's Workshops and about joining the Committee, please contact the Director-at-Large for CE.
• Continuing Education Goal: Marin CAMFT is committed to offering continuing education courses to train licensees to train LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs and LEPs to treat any client in an ethically and clinically sound manner based upon current accepted standards of practice. Course completion certificates will be awarded at the conclusion of the training and upon participant’s submission of his or her completed evaluation. 
• Refund Policy: Requests for refunds must be in writing and received by the Director-at-Large for CE no later than ten days before the program. There will be a $25.00 administrative fee to cancel registration for any program. The refund will be sent within ten days of the request.
• Accommodation for Special Needs: The special needs of persons with disabilities will be accommodated. The Program Committee will endeavor to assure that continuing education program materials, content and venue selections will meet the special needs of the disabled and that reasonable accommodation will be made. A request for accommodation can be made to the Director-at-Large for CE who will work with the Committee and event venue to meet the need. All instructors will read and adhere to Marin CAMFT’s stated policies.
• Grievance Procedure: Marin CAMFT will respond to complaints in a reasonable, ethical and timely manner, when submitted by program attendees in writing to the Director-at-Large for CE.
• Anti-Discrimination Policy: Marin CAMFT shall not discriminate against any individual or group with respect to any service, program or activity based on gender, race, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, age or other prohibited basis. Marin CAMFT does not require attendees to adhere to any particular religion or creed in order to participate in training. Marin CAMFT will not promote or advocate for a single modality of treatment that is discriminatory or likely to harm clients based on current accepted standards or practice.
• CE Approvals: This workshop meets the qualifications for 3 hours of CE for LMFTs, LCSWs, LEPs and LPCCs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences for license renewal. These will be provided by Marin CAMFT (CEP # 56895), which is approved by CAMFT to sponsor CE for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs and LEPs. Marin CAMFT maintains responsibility for this program and its contents  Contact Director-at-Large for CE for more information.