Holding the Hope: Reviving Psychological and Spiritual Agency in the Face of Climate Change – Book Launch Event with PCCS Books and Onlinevents

You are warmly invited to the launch of

Holding the Hope: reviving psychological and spiritual agency in the face of climate change

Edited by Linda Aspey, Catherine Jackson and Diane Parker and published by PCCS Books

Catastrophic climate change, the destruction of our ecosystem and accelerated species extinction hang over us all. How can coaches, counsellors, psychologists and psychotherapists hold their own fears, let alone those of their clients?

In Holding the Hope, contributors from a range of cultural backgrounds and professional disciplines – coaches, counsellors, psychologists and psychotherapists – discuss our inter-relationships with the natural world, indigenous practices and understandings, our betrayal of our children and young people, maintaining a sense of meaning and agency and, above all, how to go on practising at the edge of despair.

To launch the book, contributors will be coming together to make short presentations about their chapters, followed by an opportunity for participants to talk in more depth in small-group ‘meet the author’ workshops.

We are delighted to welcome:

Roger Duncan

Roger is a registered systemic family therapist, systemic supervisor and author, and writes and lectures on systemic psychotherapy and the epistemology and practice of ecosystemic psychotherapy. He will be talking about ‘What your biology teacher didn’t teach you: Reclaiming a Western indigenous relationship 

Niki Harré

Niki is a professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in community psychology and the psychology Her chapter is titled ‘Towards a sacred framework’ and explores the importance of coming together as communities to respond in practical ways to the climate emergency

Robin Shohet

Robin has written extensively on supervision. His approach to tackling climate change is a deep inquiry into our thinking and our ‘polluting’ thoughts, prompted by the question: ‘How green is your mind?’ 

Hetty Einzig 

Hetty works globally in leadership development, facilitation and coaching, with individuals, teams and organisations. She is a writer, a coaching supervisor, a psychotherapist rooted in the transpersonal and psychoanalytic traditions, and executive editor of the AC global magazine Coaching Perspectives. Hetty will be talking about ‘Radical hope: A dimension of the rooted soul’ 

Nick Totton

Nick is a body psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer. He founded and for some years taught training in embodied-relational therapy and in wild therapy. He will argue that, in the current situation, hope is an unhelpful burden that needs to be let go of, and that therapists can offer a space for the client to express and experience the intensity of their despair, grief and anger.

Caroline Frizell

Caroline is a senior lecturer on the MA Dance Movement Psychotherapy at Goldsmiths and holds a PhD in posthuman, eco-feminist research. She will be presenting her chapter, ‘Coming home to a post-human body: Finding hopefulness in those who care’

Chris Johnstone 

Chris is a resilience trainer, with a background in medicine, psychological therapies, groupwork and coaching. He will be talking about Active Hope Training, which he developed with Joanna Macy

Maggie Turp 

Maggie is a psychotherapist who has published on psychosomatic health and self-harm, and in recent years has focused more on climate and ecological issues. She is a member of the editorial team of the Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA) journal Explorations. Her talk will be about the role of climate and ecology fiction (cli-fi) in fostering awareness and resilience

Pedro Oliveira

Pedro runs an English-speaking therapy service in Lisbon for international clients and is founder of a collective of eco-aware psychologists in Portugal. He will talk about his own therapeutic practice with individuals who come to him with ‘eco-anxiety’, using a case study as illustration

Matthew Painton

Matthew is a certified co-active coach and a co-founder of the Deep Adaptation Guides community. He will be presenting on his own model of deep adaptation coaching 

Yasmin Kapadia

Yasmin is a transpersonal integrative counsellor and eco-therapist. She will discuss the need for a decolonising and anti-racist approach. She will describe how therapy can help cultivate qualities of kinship in our relationships which are foundational in our response to social and ecological injustices, including the climate crisis. 

Fred Ehresmann

Fred is a registered mental health nurse specialising in working with children, young people and their families. He works at the University of the West of England as a senior lecturer in mental health, where he leads an undergraduate module in solution-focused practice. His focus will be on ‘solution-focused practice at the edge of despair’ 

Caroline Hickman

Caroline is a psychotherapist and lecturer at the University of Bath. She has researched and published widely on children and young people’s emotional responses to climate change and will talk about how to help them make meaning from their experience

Jo McAndrews

Jo is a training consultant, facilitator and qualified psychotherapist, specialising in working with young people, parents and professionals who work with children. She will talk about growing resilience in the face of crisis 

Andy Miller

Andy is a climate coach in Vancouver, Canada, has an MSc in the business psychology of sustainable development and is a certified EFT coach. He will present his model of emotion coaching for parents of climate-aware children