--- title: "Shrinks Are Treating Climate-Traumatized Kids For “Eco-Anxiety”" description: "An increasing number of children in the UK are being treated by healthcare professionals for \"eco-anxiety,\" a growing sense of fear over climate change." date: "2019-09-18" modified: "2019-09-18" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/climate-change-anxiety-kids-treatment" categories: - "Health & Medicine" tags: - "climate change" - "mental health" - "Mental Illness" --- # Shrinks Are Treating Climate-Traumatized Kids For “Eco-Anxiety” ![An increasing number of children in the UK are being treated by healthcare professionals for "eco-anxiety," a growing sense of fear over climate change.]() *\Image: Image via NeedPix/Victor Tangermann\* ## Eco-Anxiety Our planet is on fire and there's not much we can do about it. An increasing number of children in the UK are being treated by healthcare professionals for "eco-anxiety," a growing sense of fear over climate change and impending environmental disasters, the [*Daily Telegraph* reports](). ## Disasterscape Escalating global emissions are likely to cause [global food supplies]() to dwindle and water levels to rise. Luckily, with the aid of climate action groups and activist leaders such as 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, we're becoming increasingly aware of that unsettling future. But that awareness comes with negative consequences: mounting psychological stress on young people. "The fear is of environmental doom — that we’re all going to die," Caroline Hickman, executive for the Climate Psychology Alliance, told the *Telegraph*. "A lot of parents are coming into therapy asking for help with the children and it has escalated a lot this summer." ## Climate Panic At least partially to blame — for better or for worse — are the increasingly vocal activists rallying the public against climate change. "Adults keep saying, we owe it to the young people to give them hope," [Thunberg said]() during a speech at last year's global school strike against climate change. "But I don’t want your hope, I don’t want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic." We don't yet have exact numbers of how many people feel overwhelmed by eco-anxiety. The phenomenon has also not yet officially been classified as a mental illness, since its cause is "rational," [according to CPA members](). ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()