The psychosocial distress caused by climate change is an associated crisis

Psychoanalytically, we could read the story of climate change as a sibling rivalry between the Global North and South in their relationship with Mother Earth. The northern sibling has set itself up as the more powerful child, omnipotent and aggressively attached to the mother. At the expense of the southern sibling, the North has dominated the system through acting out to exploitatively maintain and defend its own relevance, importance and adequacy. 

The North’s domination also comes at the expense of the entire system. It affects the nurturing mother’s health, while the overpowered southern offspring struggles with the mental and physical burden of impotence and negative self-identification, adding to Mother Earth’s pain at her inability to control her more aggressive child. Having no alternative to protect the earthly family system from complete destruction, she gives stern, consequential warnings that demand more mature behaviour from both her children – warnings in the form of the intensifying ecological disasters of climate change.

Psychoanalysis, however, is not the most effective psychological framework to understand and practically address the challenges posed by adaptation to climate change. Psychosocial psychology, which asserts that the external context and the intrapsychic influence each other, is more applicable. This framework is most relevant as it includes understanding the impact of the historical, as well as how the social, political and economic affect psychological and intrapsychic processes. Although likely to be resisted by practitioners following classical psychological approaches, in the context of climate adjustment, a psychosocial approach is the only one that can promote a just transition to climate change in a manner that accounts for individual and mental health challenges in their sociopolitical context. 

Climate change ushers in a watershed moment in the history of humanity. It is a global, complex, systemic predicament that presents the world with associated health problems that are diverse and far-reaching. Social, historical and political factors operating at different scales affect levels of vulnerability to environmental change. The colonial exploitation of sub-Saharan Africa has resulted in this region facing the challenges of climate change with particularly high levels of vulnerability. 

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South Africa is not immune from the sociopolitical consequences of its history and enters the climate change quandary with vulnerabilities that are deeply entrenched socially, economically, politically and psychologically. 

The psychological effects of apartheid have not been adequately researched and documented. However, apartheid imprinted a negative racialised identity on the black population and led to low levels of education, poor economic opportunities and poor social infrastructure. This has further affected the health status of black communities, including their mental health. Living under apartheid and its persistent continuities in contemporary society can be seen as a state of continuous traumatic stress. 

Psychological distress in South Africans has its roots in the social, economic and political. It has affected mental health, inter-group relations and issues of identity. Research suggests that race differences in psychological distress can be attributed to socioeconomic status, especially in relation to education and income. Others have suggested that racial prejudice and discrimination worsen psychological distress. The prevalence of mental illness in South Africa is high. The country’s health system has, however, been pitifully ineffective in providing care.

Socioeconomic vulnerability is a major contributing factor to the increasing incidence of mental illness. Half of South Africans currently live in poverty, and 44% are unemployed. The poor live in areas with poor infrastructure and higher susceptibility to pollution, poor water access and water quality, poor sanitation, malnutrition and other risk factors. 

This means that the health consequences are greater for the poor. Low socioeconomic status and poverty are positively related with suicide. Low levels of education are also dominant in the country. Continued institutional failure to provide the necessary social and economic support makes adaptation to climate events significantly more difficult.

Low educational levels and grant dependency also add to the difficulty. These factors make the population more vulnerable to psychological adversity and mental illness. It is thus clear that the upfront investment necessary to respond to climate change could amplify South Africa’s economic, infrastructural and therefore mental health challenges, particularly psychological trauma and stress responses. If not managed effectively, the transition to a low-carbon economy is likely to be accompanied by a significant increase in mental illness. 

Preparation for these changes offers an opportunity to alter the woeful state of mental health care and to utilise the complexity of the climate change challenge to begin to address mental health care in the context of broader social injustices. 

Climate change and mental health perspectives

Considerations in developing a framework for a just transition