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Welcome to the second edition of “Dr. Green’s Emotional Rescue,” our advice column designed to help environmentalists navigate the emotional and mental-health challenges of working toward a greener, healthier planet.
This time we tackle eco-grieving and post-traumatic stress experienced by environmentalists. We hope you find the information useful and healing.

Hello from Brazil!
I hope you can help. I spent the past few years studying a species population in one of our forests. Then I went home last year to visit my family, and when I got back the forest was devastated. An illegal road to a gold mine was just the first step. Crews poached wildlife and feral hogs followed the roads. The species I was studying had disappeared. Months later, I keep having nightmares about this. A colleague suggested I might have PTSD, but I’m afraid to discuss that with anyone else because it might affect my career. Will these feelings go away on their own?
Olá, meu amigo!
Oh, how awful it is for you to see that rich, beautiful forest and the species you love so much destroyed and disappeared! I am so very sorry for your tremendous loss. I too have also lost many beautiful, natural places throughout my life, and it is devastating. I understand completely what you’re going through.
First, please take time to grieve. It’s a key part of healing from post-trauma, which you may have.
Let’s talk about eco-grief first, and then we’ll address your post-trauma condition (PTSD). The two conditions are closely intertwined, but each has its own processes for healing.
The ‘3 N’s of grief’ apply to eco-grief too.
Grieving is NORMAL, and it is perfectly normal to be profoundly affected by significant trauma and loss. You have experienced an event of soul-shattering violence. Grieving is NATURAL and a completely acceptable human response. We are created to love, and we are created to mourn the loss of love. Grief is NECESSARY: You cannot move forward in your life if you don’t take the journey through the mourning process for what you’ve lost. And you must grieve for yourself, because you have been deeply hurt and are psychologically wounded.
Healthy ways to mourn include constructive, active, forward-focused activities. Cry when you feel like it, early and often — let it out! Express anger freely about the loss and pay tribute to the lost through self-love, self-care, and giving back to others in tribute to what was lost (for example, starting a charity, foundation or nonprofit that works to stop environmental destruction). Celebrate lost environments and species through writing, art, photography, an annual event, a garden or sanctuary, or gatherings … all positive, all constructive, with a focus on the joy of life and celebration of nature.
Grief groups and therapy can help. Eco-grief groups and organizations are available online across the globe, providing peer support, emotional resilience techniques, community building, and transforming eco-grief and eco-anger into effective action. Eco-grief groups can provide safe spaces to process feelings of loss, anxiety, and anger about climate change and environmental degradation. See a list of some eco-grief online groups below.
Let’s look at posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
PTSD is the only mental condition caused by human beings inflicting horrors upon each other, including the destruction of our environment and the life within it.
PTSD is highly stigmatized, and people who have PTSD are often treated like pariahs, because our condition reminds us of how awful we can be to each other and how our societies have failed to protect us. We hold up a mirror to the true evilness of humankind. Those of us who have PTSD often suffer alone and in silence. We are falsely considered “crazy” and “ticking time bombs.” These shaming prejudices are wrong and ignorant but exist, nonetheless.
There is nothing insane about post-trauma. PTSD is a normal reaction to abnormal events — experiences that are violent, horrifying, shocking, unexpected, threaten death, compromise our sense of self, and are life-altering in a deep and meaningful way.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the authoritative guide to diagnosing mental disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association, PTSD is the direct result of exposure to:
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- Actual or threatened death or serious injury.
- Threat to one’s physical integrity.
- Witnessing an event that involves death, injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of another person (in this case, a forest and its inhabitants).
- The unexpected or violent death, serious harm, or threat of death or injury to someone we love and care for (also, in this case, a forest).
- Responses to the event involve: intense fear, helplessness, and horror.
Symptoms include marked changes in previous personality characteristics, hypervigilance, sleeplessness, nightmares, extreme startle response, feeling “permanently damaged” or unforgivable, loss of previous spiritual beliefs (spiritual emptiness), nihilism, suicidal ideation, danger-seeking and self-destructive behaviors, hostility, irritability, antisocial responses to others, social withdrawal, hermetism (to avoid triggers), impaired relationships, no relationships, and self-medication.
Who gets PTSD?
Everyone seems to think that only military veterans have PTSD. This is not true: Military personnel only make up about 7% of the PTSD population.
Causes of Posttraumatic Stress disorder (PTSD) by type of trauma infographic. Data from Australian adults, 2011.
Does PTSD go away on its own?
No. However, treatment for PTSD through therapy or a peer support group will help PTSD sufferers live with the trauma they have experienced. In PTSD caused by ecocide or eco-crime, your fellow environmentalist peers in a support group run by a trained facilitator would be a great start to coping with your eco-trauma. I have listed some resources below.
If you need more intense psychological help, seeing a licensed, board-certified psychologist or psychiatrist in one-to-one, talk therapy sessions is a good idea. These doctors may prescribe short courses of medications to aid the therapy’s effectiveness by helping with depression, sleep disturbances, and anxiety.
It may take some time to feel better, but if you meet the therapist and peer support group members halfway, you can recover and have a full and joyful life. The memories will remain, but you’ll learn to walk more easily with them so you can take on environmental criminals in smart, strategic ways.
Good luck on your journey of recovering from this terrible experience. I’ll be cheering for your recovery and send positive energy to you. Be kind to yourself and know that you are a very important part of protecting and defending our environment.
Se cuide meu amigo!
Dr. Green
So what are you struggling with emotionally when it comes to your work in environmentalism? I want to know. Maybe together we can come up with solid mental strategies for what’s among the toughest fields going, at this moment in history.
All participants will remain anonymous. This column is not a substitute for psychological therapy or care. We are merely a place where peers can find advice on handling their inner conflicts and problems as a result of their environmental efforts. See below for additional resources.

Send Dr. Green your questions below:
All questions are considered intended for publication; published questions will be kept anonymous. Individual replies are not possible.
See you next time!

Disclaimer: This column is not a replacement for therapy, and the advice given is educational in nature, not a replacement for professional psychological or psychiatric therapy. This is a peer-driven support effort by The Revelator to inform and build community with environmental and wildlife defenders.
If you are feeling critically depressed and suicidal, it’s time to immediately find professional help. Go to your closest emergency room or call the following numbers to get immediate help in your area:
SUICIDE HOTLINES
Sources
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5
Eco-Grief Support Resources
Climate Grief Groups
Good Grief Network
GreenFaith
Many of these groups are donation-based or free, offering a crucial outlet for those feeling isolated in their climate anxieties.