Other Groups
Nowadays, weekend time is not easily spent on work-related stuff if I can help it but there was something about Facing the Climate Crisis: Therapeutic Resilience and Hope in the face of Existential Threat, a lecture at the end of January which appealed with its challenge of “facing” and increasing ponderings about the existential nature of this work. And the way, climate crisis discussions were peculiarly absent, not least in the gasiform.
I zoomed into Judith Anderson’s lecture, glad I did. She heads up the Climate Psychology Alliance. Inspired by her talk (and impressive website, btw), I was a member by that evening. What she spoke about was groupish and familiar. That is, keeping in mind the context of the groups we work in and with, “…our relationship with the world we inhabit, the air we breathe but little of that in the theories. What have we split off and why?” she asked. The aftermath of the pandemic is a ready candidate along with any number of troubles we are more conscious of – war, inequalities, too numerous to mention.
But something more is rumbling away. I imagine the troubles which are focussed on, as volcanic eruptions of some other lava bubbling away. Marcus Price’s book title, Asleep on the Volcano, is a great description for all this.
Judith spoke of “functional dissociation”: that we must dissociate in order to carry on, to live. Which chimes with those who maintain that mental illness and especially depression are the only sane responses to this mad world and feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
It is this phrase which prompted me to write this piece. I am an excellent dissociator, first class, and have the faith that being aware of dissociating carries some hope. I notice that it is largely with colleagues, in groups, that talk of these matters, of thinking about the usually unthinkable, becomes possible and meaningful.
I left this piece until the last moment but, like the lecture, glad to overcome the procrastination that often accompanies dissociation. The CPA has Climate Cafes modelled on Death Cafes, this last found only by writing this. Where folk come together to think about their mortality. All links up. Curious to know whether, if you are reading this (and thanks if you have), these organisations are new to you. I think it cannot be just me that is lagging behind……..
Joan Fogel
Mother/daughter/wife/Group-analytic psychotherapist/Balint leader/Supervisor/BJP editor/white/British Jewish/middle class.