Environmental educators need a comprehensive understanding of eco-anxiety's multiple forms and manifestations to effectively support learners while maintaining critical awareness of its psychological and sociopolitical dimensions

Pihkala, Panu. (2020). Eco-Anxiety and Environmental Education. Sustainability, 12(23), 10149+. 10.3390/su122310149

This comprehensive review examines how environmental education intersects with and should respond to the growing phenomenon of eco-anxiety. The author states that the reviewed papers have been collected during many years of interdisciplinary research, alongside keyword searches in databases. 

The article begins by establishing that eco-anxiety, defined as significant distress caused substantially by the ecological crisis, appears to be rapidly increasing, particularly among young people. While this presents challenges for environmental education, it also offers opportunities for meaningful engagement with environmental issues.

Through analysis of interdisciplinary research, the study identifies several key aspects of eco-anxiety that educators must understand. First, eco-anxiety can manifest in multiple forms, including anxiety emotions, strong anxiety symptoms, anxiety due to repressed emotions, and existential anxiety. These forms often overlap and interrelate in complex ways. Second, eco-anxiety is closely connected with other ecological emotions such as grief, guilt, anger, and despair, requiring educators to take a holistic approach to emotional awareness and support.

The research reveals that eco-anxiety poses both challenges and opportunities for environmental education. While excessive anxiety can paralyze and inhibit learning, moderate levels of anxiety can serve as motivation for engagement and action. The author argues that environmental educators need organizational and peer support both to process their own difficult emotions and to develop emotional skills in their work with students.

The article identifies several key recommendations for educational practice. Educators should first practice self-reflection about their own eco-anxiety before helping others. They need to validate students' ecological emotions while maintaining a balance between acknowledging difficult feelings and fostering empowerment. Educational institutions should provide support structures and continuing education about ecological emotions.

The author emphasizes that educational responses to eco-anxiety should incorporate both psychological understanding and critical awareness of social and political dimensions. This includes recognizing how emotion norms in society shape experiences of eco-anxiety and how power dynamics influence emotional expression and recognition.

Pihkala outlines several practical possibilities for educators, including validating ecological emotions, providing safe spaces for discussion, offering embodied and creative activities for emotional exploration, and supporting collective action. However, these activities must be implemented with careful attention to context and safety considerations.

The review concludes by emphasizing that eco-anxiety will likely increase as awareness of environmental crises grows. Environmental educators have a crucial role in helping learners develop emotional resilience while maintaining engagement with environmental issues. This requires balancing acknowledgment of difficult emotions with opportunities for empowerment and meaningful action.

The author identifies several areas needing further research, including longitudinal studies of various methods for encountering eco-anxiety, investigation of contextual factors affecting different approaches, and exploration of posthumanist perspectives on shared ecological emotions between humans and non-humans. The article provides a foundation for developing more comprehensive educational approaches to eco-anxiety while acknowledging the complexity of this emerging challenge.

The Bottom Line

This systematic review by Pihkala examines the intersection of eco-anxiety and environmental education, analyzing both the challenges and opportunities this phenomenon presents for educators. The review reveals that eco-anxiety manifests in multiple forms, from adaptive responses that can motivate action to more paralyzing manifestations that require careful support. The author argues that educators must develop both theoretical understanding and practical skills to effectively address eco-anxiety, while maintaining awareness of its complex psychological, social, and political dimensions. The paper provides recommendations for educational institutions and practitioners while emphasizing the need to validate emotions without falling into purely therapeutic approaches.