Abstract
Drawing on research from the fields of cognitive archeology, developmental psychology, and ecological history, this paper suggests that many common implicit assumptions about the nature of ecoanxiety may be symptomatic of a bigger problem: a social mind practicing an objectivist ontology. The individual person, in other words, is not the container where ecoanxiety is located. Although ecoanxiety is increasingly becoming one salient aspect of modern and globalized personhoods, so is the casual cruelty of organized climate change denial. Both these damaged minds must be understood as mediated, embodied, extended, distributed and dynamic. By then considering fear as an important driver of disorganized attachment, we can gain new insights by examining the historical collective experience of fear. Through expanding and applying a theory of disorganized (social mind) attachment that is focused not on a single dyad but instead on much broader webs of relations, our understandings and diagnoses of ecoanxiety can also be radically expanded to a macro scale with important mental health policy implications.
Presenters
Peter GrahamFaculty, Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2026 Special Focus—Unseen Sustainability: Addressing Hidden Risks to Long-Term Wellbeing for All
KEYWORDS
Development, Ecoanxiety, Ecopsychology, Exclusion, Mind, Ontology, Pathogenesis
