What Can Depth Psychology Contribute to Ecological Transformation? A Review of Eight Recent Books

‘I cannot emphasize enough that time is running out. Irreversible climate tipping points lie alarmingly close’.

Recently, in an active imagination in the forest near my home, the spirits of nature that I encountered there had this to say: ‘Our world is diminishing. There are fewer and fewer places where we can be’. The destruction and the suffering of the world affect us deeply, whether or not we are conscious of it. The new terms ‘eco-grief’ and ‘eco-anxiety’ reflect this. The urgency of effective action is increasingly acknowledged. Yet: why don't we act in the face of this danger and how can we foster the necessary change? There is a growing depth-psychological literature reflecting on such questions (e.g. Marshall 2009; Dodds 2011; Foster 2011; Cater & Foster 2012; Rust & Totton 2012; Weintrobe 2013; Lertzman 2015; Kiehl 2016; Orange 2017; Harvey et al. 2020). This review, written from my perspective as a Jungian analyst and former environmental scientist deeply concerned about the

suffering of both outer and inner nature, considers eight of the most recently published books (see Table 1). These books enrich the existing literature with a variety of new or refined depth-psychological perspectives on the ecological crisis by authors mainly from the U.K., the U.S., Australia and Switzerland,1 many of whom are involved with the Climate Psychology Alliance2. These authors investigate what has led to the ecological crisis, what keeps preventing us from acting, how the crisis affects us or how we can address it. Environmental classics from the 1960s and 70s - yes, these problems have been known for 50 years! - such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Donella Meadows et al.'s Limits to Growth or James Lovelock's and Lynn Margulis's Gaia hypothesis, still serve as cornerstones of contemporary thinking. These classics were (and still are) revolutionary because they questioned material progress and permanent gr