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Record-breaking heat waves, rising seas, desertification of large areas, catastrophic forest fires, massive storms, collapse of insect and fish populations, dying coral reefs, and mass movements of climate refugees are features of the climate crisis that human beings and other species face. The impact of climate crisis is evident in the rise of psychological distress, which researchers have taken note of in the last 10 years (Pihkala, 2017, 2018a, 2018b; 2020a, 2020b, 2022a, 2022b; Léger-Goodes, T. et. al., 2022; Lim, R. & Hong, J. 2022; Wu, J. et. al., 2020; Boluda-Verdú, I. et. al., 2022; Comtesse, et. al. 2021; Cunsolo, et. al., 2020; Cunsolo Willcox & Ellis, 2018; Cunsolo Willcox & Landman, 2017). But, given the list above, climate change negatively impacts all other living beings and, as E. O. Wilson (2003) predicts, half of the known species will be extinct by the end of this century. We, and by “we” I mean most living beings, are in a world of trouble.
A world of trouble can also serve as a revelatory event, though a disturbing one to be sure. Philosopher Giorgio Agamben (1999) writes that a burning house reveals “the fundamental architectural problem [that] becomes visible for the first time” (p.115). The Earth is becoming uninhabitable for many, if not most, species, and this reveals core architectural problems in Western epistemologies that undergird political philosophies, some human and physical sciences, and their attending forms of living vis-à-vis other species and the Earth. As Clayton Crockett (2012) argues, “We need to experiment radically with new ways of thinking and living, because the current [Western] paradigm is in a state of exhaustion, depletion, and death” (p.165). To experiment radically first requires awareness and understanding of the architectural problem(s) in our theories and their accompanying forms of relating to the world. This article explores and depicts the structural problem that is evident in the works of Sigmund Freud. More p