Format/Structure

This workshop brings together practices and expressions of the political ecology of healing, including psychosocial practices, ecological and political work that address and/or transform emotional distress, anger, and grief amid environmental degradation, climate disruptions, ecocides and wars.

Long Abstract

"Environmental movements around the world are increasingly seeking to integrate processes and practices that address emotional distress, anger, and grief amid escalating environmental degradation, climate disruptions, ecocides, and wars. At the same time, psychotherapy is increasingly called upon to politicise therapeutic practice and to understand personal suffering not simply as an individual issue, but as something shaped by structural and exploitative systems.

This workshop draws inspiration from scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of ecological thought, healing justice, and social transformation. It brings together participants interested in sharing and learning about practices, collaborations, methodologies, and artistic expressions that address socio-environmental healing in contexts of environmental degradation, colonisation, and conflict.

The workshop will follow an open and flexible format, creating a horizontal space for encounter and active listening. Participants will be invited to share experiences, knowledge, and sensibilities in several rounds of voices, possibly supported by small objects, photographs, drawings, or other materials that connect to their stories. The session will be screen-free to encourage attentive, embodied, and relational presence.

Together, we will explore key dimensions of socio-environmental healing, including conceptual frameworks, knowledge systems, and collective strategies for engaging with experiences such as solastalgia, ecological grief, climate anxiety, embodied environmental injustice, etc. The workshop will also create space to exchange methodologies for mapping socio-environmental impacts and coping strategies, and to reflect on politicised practices as possible tools for collective healing within environmental and social movements."