Peace in mind: responding to mental ill health associated with the climate crisis through personally meaningful change

Abstract

Aims:

To explore the principles of the Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) framework in relation to climate change as a global threat to mental health. To introduce WRAP to public health practitioners involved in improving the mental health of diverse populations in response to climate change. To critically review how privileging the principles of WRAP can inform public and healthcare practitioner approaches to tackling rising distress resulting from climate change.

Methods:

A selective, iterative, purposive review of theoretical and empirical studies, within a critical realist epistemology, was undertaken. Analysis was undertaken deductively.

Findings:

The WRAP principles of personal responsibility, self-advocacy, hope, support, and education are considered in turn. While exploring the principles of WRAP, additional frameworks and concepts in mental health are explored in relation to climate change. Each of the principles explored has a link to the work already being undertaken informally by those involved in climate activism. Principles of recovery from distress draw our attention to ‘active hope’ and ‘citizenship’ through reconnection with people and planet, and sharing common experiences.

Conclusions:

Experiences of those experiencing distress and those involved in climate activism can provide new ways to re-formulate theory and practice for public health initiatives. By meeting the concerns of citizens in relation to their health in the context of a changing climate, health practitioners have the opportunity to improve psychological and material circumstances by using accessible, personally meaningful, and community-connecting frameworks such as WRAP. By encouraging hope-full re-orientation and action, healthcare workers and the citizens they aim to serve can improve their mutual health and inform future individual or collective action in relation to climate change.

Plain language summary

Peace in Mind: Responding to mental ill health associated with the climate crisis

This article introduces Wellness Recovery Action Plans (WRAPs) and explores how they can be used in relation to mental health recovery related to climate change.

WRAP is a widely used recovery plan to support individuals’ mental health and wellness, encompassing the key concepts of personal responsibility, self-advocacy, hope, education and support. The findings of the review are presented via these principles.

Personal responsibility is included in WRAP to improve people’s ability to take care of their own wellbeing, helping to foster agency and hope. However, this may lead to hopelessness as people reflect on their own ability to effect change.

Self-advocacy correlates with personal activism with climate distress being positively correlated with climate activism. Sharing experiences of climate distress has also been shown to have a positive effect, with groups like Extinction Rebellion having specific branches dedicated to preserving activist wellbeing.

Hope is already prominent in mental health literature and is argued to be a key component of mental healthcare in relation to climate change. Activism communities use the concept of ‘active hope’ to sustain action and wellbeing. ‘Active hope’ includes connecting with people and planet in a way that individuals gain hope from – like the concept of support in WRAP.

Support and Education are important in the context of climate change due to the physical and psychological isolation it can cause. The concepts of ‘citizenship’, ‘collective citizenship’ and ‘acts of citizenship’ in mental health literature echo collective activism.

Overall, the analysis suggests we can learn from the experiences of those who have endured crises to form public health approaches to the effects of climate change. It emphasises the effect of support systems and ‘active hope’, as well as how the principles of WRAP are readily accessible on a wide scale.