Canicles, floods, tsunamis, but also pollution … The psychiatrist studies the impact of the disturbance of the environment on mental health, and notes a strong progression of eco-anxiety in its patients.
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Professor Antoine Pelissolo is Head of Department of Hospital Psychiatry Henri-Mondor and Albert-Chenevier (AP-HP, Créteil). His last book, the emotions of the climate distraction (Flammarion, 220 pages, 19 euros), co-written with the internal in Psychiatry Célia Massini, explores the direct and indirect effects of global warming on mental health, and proposes solutions to do face. Interview with a worried but optimistic psychiatrist.
How did you come to the idea of this essay? Especially from your daily experience, or rather of personal interest for these topics?
Both at a time. Taking care for anxiety disorders for a long time, I see that the concerns around the climate future are increasingly present among our patients. As a personal capacity, my look at these questions is especially medical, but there is a generation effect: the young colleague with whom I wrote the book is, it, concerned personally. She wanted to work on this theme and even made her thesis.
Beyond eco-anxiety disorders, we are more interested in the effects of the environment on the psyche. On the one hand, we explored the effects of acute events such as guns, floods or tsunamis; And on the other, less brutal and less spectacular, low noise changes in our environment, including the role of pollution. These topics are still poorly understood. Research works are conducted, but it’s still quite embryonic compared to what is done in psychiatry.
How do patients with eco-anxiety are present in your consultations?
These are most often people who already consulted for other reasons. Eco-anxiety is one of the themes encountered in generalized anxiety, and which becomes central for some and especially among young people.
Classically, the main topics of anxiety are work, health, money. Concerns around the climate and ecology have been more frequent for two years, the health crisis has accentuated the phenomenon.
In my hospital, which is a specialized establishment, we see especially severe cases, which have evolved for example towards a depression. But all eco-anxious do not consult a psychiatrist or psychologist, and there is not necessarily needed.
Eco-anxiety should be considered as a theme that can go, in some, to a state of suffering, with symptoms in the field of anxiety disorders: panic attacks, anxieties, sleep disorders, and A whole range of negative emotions. For the moment in any case, this diagnosis is not individualized as such in the classifications of psychiatric diseases.
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