In this episode, Steph interviews Liz Marks about the upcoming special issue on climate change in the Cognitive Behaviour Therapist.

They discuss the origins of the special issue and chat a bit about the Climate Change Special Interest Group (SIG) within the BABCP. Liz also gives an overview of all papers in the special issue, covering topics such as eco distress, transdiagnostic approaches, compassion-focused therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, environmental identity, active hope, and climate cafes.

Useful links:

tCBT Special Issue - CBT in a Time of Climate and Biodiversity Crises

Liz is part of the Bath Centre for Mindfulness and Community mission and an affiliate of CAST- The Centre for Climate and Social Transformations

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Credits:

Music is Autmn Coffee by Bosnow from Uppbeat

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License code: 3F32NRBYH67P5MIF

 

Transcript:

Hello. I welcome to let's talk about CBT- Research Matters, the podcast that explores some of the latest research published in the BABCP journals with me Steph Curnow. Each episode, I'll be talking to a recently published author about their research, what was the motivation behind it and how they hope it will impact the world of CBT.

Today, I'm talking to Dr Liz Marks. Liz is a Guest Editor for our upcoming special issue "CBT in a time of climate and biodiversity crises", which will be published later this summer in the Cognitive Behaviour Therapist.

Steph: Hi, Liz, welcome to the podcast.

Liz: Hi Steph. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast today.

Steph: You're welcome. So, before we get into the episode, would you tell us a bit about who you are and the work that you do?

Liz: Yeah, sure. So, I'm a senior lecturer at the University of Bath and I'm also a clinical psychologist, so I teach clinical psychology, but I also do a lot of research into relevant aspects of psychology and particularly CBT. So I'm also an accredited CBT therapist, I'm an MBCT trained mindfulness teacher and my work sort of covers all of those different aspects, both clinically and in terms of research.

Steph: So we're talking today, not just about one paper, but we're actually talking about several papers, which make the upcoming special issue in the Cognitive Behaviour Therapist. So this is a special issue on climate change, which you guest edit alongside Mandy Cole. Can you tell me a little bit about how the idea for the special issue came around?

Liz: Yeah, it's, it's really, interesting journey. I guess it sort of started in 2022, at the London conference. I don't know if you were there or your listeners were there, it was in the middle of that blistering heat wave. I had put in a symposium about climate change with Mark Williams at Cardiff and some others. And Mandy, who I didn't know at this point, had put in a request to run an interactive table. BABCP suggested we link up and have a round table, which is what we did. And that's where I met Mandy and also Claire Willsher who had been looking for some guidance from the organization around activism so Mandy and Claire were engaged in a consultation, with the BABCP members at the conference about what they wanted in relation to climate change and so that was all going on. And one of the things that happened was, Richard, Thwaites, who's the editor in chief at tCBT, spoke to Mandy there and asked if she might be interested in guest editing a special issue on climate change and me and Mandy, who had, who'd been talking at the conference, talked about that, and she asked me to join her, and that's kind of where it started.

Steph: Brilliant. Thank you. And did you want to talk a little bit about the climate change SIG? How many members do you have? What kind of goes on in the climate change SIG?

Liz: Yeah, okay. So the, the, climate change SIG was another outcome from this conference in 2022. And Mandy put in an application for the SIG at that point. It hadn't been successful previously, but it was accepted then. And, we were a temporary committee until 2023 when we had our first AGM and that was a conference in Cardiff. And now we've got over a hundred people.

Steph: Oh, wow.

Liz: and we, yeah, it's great. It's really exciting. It's building. And, so they, the SIG supported this special issue and we also are running various events. So we are running an event on eco therapy and CBT in September, we're supporting that and we're also going to be supporting the running of some climate cafes, which I can talk about a bit later as well.

One of the other really important things that came out of the conference and that goes beyond the SIG, in fact, is the climate statement that the BABCP have made about the organization's aspirations and guidance around climate change as a whole. I think it's really important to mention this. I'm not sure if your listeners will all be aware, but they made it really clear there that BABCP recognizes we're in a climate and ecological emergency and that we all need to take action on climate change, regardless of what our roles are. And recognizing that CBT has the tools to alleviate suffering, but that we also need to develop new ways of working. So I think that's really important and also is well aligned to what we're doing with the special issue.

And one last thing that SIG has done that's really interesting that your listeners might be interested in is that people in the Climate SIG have been interviewing the leaders of the organization about what they think is important about climate change. So President Saiqa Naz, President Elect Stirling Moorey, and the CEO, Tommy McIllravey, and they all talk about feeling passionately about climate change as individuals, as well as for the organization. So there's a real energy around this at the moment.

Steph: Okay. Brilliant. Thank you. So, if we get into talking about the special issue, then it's full title is CBT In A Time Of Climate And Biodiversity Crises. So it has eight papers in the issue, and it also starts with a really lovely introduction from yourself and Mandy, which really sets the context of the issue and how all the papers fit within it. Do you want to start talking a bit about some of the papers and why they're significant.

Liz: If I could just start by setting all of the papers in a particular context, which is the recognition that we are living at a time where we're facing significant threats and losses from climate change and the biodiversity crisis. And we wanted these papers to drive forward our understanding, offering original and pioneering ideas about what CBT can do in this context. And I think we, we talk about the distress that people might experience when aware or experiencing the impacts of climate change and related issues, which I will probably refer to as eco distress as we go through. but I, I think it's really important that this isn't some sort of diagnosis. It's referring to the experience of challenging thoughts and feelings in response to what is really happening, so just as we might have an emotional response when we are living with a chronic or terminal illness, and reality cognitions about that, we see that we're living with a, in a planet, who is also facing a chronic health condition, a sort of planetary health crisis and it's really important I think that we recognize that the thoughts and feelings that people have aren't pathological. They're actually showing a real awareness of what we're all facing.

Steph: The first paper that we were going to talk about was the paper with Mark Freeston and Claire Willsher. And this is quite an unusual paper in that it doesn't read as a research paper, but it is Claire's experiences as a climate change activist, and then Mark's responses to her with the kind of academic evidence backing up her kind of per