‘Taking the green pill’: An interpretative phenomenological analysis of the lived experiences of climate distress

CD is a morally grounded response to an ongoing and existential global threat, shaped by identity, values and wider socio-political contexts. Supportive responses should avoid individualising or pathologising distress, instead attending to how responsibility is understood and internalised, and to how individuals relate to their distress in ways that allow for sustainable moral engagement. Therapeutic approaches that support individuals to hold responsibility with self-compassion and within realistic limits of individual agency, alongside collective forms of support, may be particularly valuable.