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Dr Trudi Macagnino

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Professional biography

I am a psychosocial psychologist with a research interest in our individual and collective responses to the climate and ecological emergency (CEE). My research seeks to understand the continued deprioritisation of this global issue by citizens, communities, organisations and governments despite increasing awareness and concern. As a psychotherapist I am particularly interested in the emotional impact of engaging with the problem and the individual and social defences used to avoid distress and disruption. My research and professional practice inform my role as a staff tutor in the school of psychology and counselling. 

PhD Thesis - 'The Play of Defences in the Climate and Ecological Emergency: A Psychosocial Exploration of Therapy and Eco-activism' 

I argue that therapy has an important role to play in these times of the CEE but it needs a radical reframing as an eco-psychosocial practice. Therapy can support activists by helping them to understand their motives and the relationship between their histories and their activism (inner and outer), leading to activism with awareness and preventing burnout. Therapy can support people to live with the reality of the CEE and the difficult feelings it evokes by providing the containment and safety to process them. It can act as a bridge to support people to connect with their agency and to act for change, thereby countering feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness.

In order to be able to do this however, therapists need to first engage with the CEE on a personal level, to process their own feelings and dismantle the individual and social defences that are a barrier to this. Therapists will need support from professional organisations in terms of training and a move away from the highly controlled regulation. New forms of healing and transformation may be needed where the inner and outer can come together in a truly psycho-social space. The role of community support and engagement will become increasingly important as we traverse between the old and new world. As the CEE becomes increasingly felt by those of us in the more privileged and insulated Global North and eco-distress increases, my study offers some insights in how we are to live with this reality.

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Research interests

My research interests relate to 

  • Individual and social responses and impacts of the climate and ecological emergency
  • Professional practice of working with eco-anxiety
  • Ecopsychology - our relationship with the more-than-human world
  • Ecotherapy - the therapeutic benefits of the more-than-human world
  • Eco-activism 

My preferred methodology is qualitative psychosocial and I draw on psychoanalytic ideas to explore unconscious material.

 

Teaching interests

I am involved in the presentation and/or production of the following modules:

D241 Exploring mental health and counselling

DD310 Counselling and forensic psychology

DD210 Living psychology: from the everyday to the extraordinary

D230 Advancing your counselling practice

D250 Experiencing the Real World

Impact and engagement

BBC Springwatch helping to develop a survey investigating climate-anxiety and how to manage it.

BBC Morning Live - academic consultant for a film on eco-anxiety. 

Public lectures in the Southwest region of England on climate psychology and eco-anxiety.

External collaborations

I am a graduate member of the Bristish psychological Society and a member of the newly formed Environmental Psychology section New Environmental Psychology Section approved | BPS and the Division of Academics, Researchers & Teachers in Psychology Division of Academics, Researchers, and Teachers in Psychology | BPS

Publications

Online Free Association Narrative Interviewing: Intimacy, embodied experience and technological entanglements (2023)
Macagnino, Trudi
Qualitative Methods in Psychology Bulletin, 35(1) (pp. 60-66)


Why aren’t we talking about climate change? – Defences in the therapy room (2022)
Macagnino, Trudi
British Gestalt Journal, 31, Article 3(2) (pp. 14-23)


Eco-anxiety in the Therapy Room: Affect, Defences and Implications for Practice (2024)
Macagnino, Trudi
In: Anderson, Judith; Staunton, Tree; O'Gorman, Jenny and Hickman, Caroline eds. Being a Therapist in a Time of Climate Breakdown (pp. 126-135)
ISBN : 978-1-032-56560-6 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon, UK


Why Aren't We Talking About Climate Change? Defences in the Therapy Room (2024)
Macagnino, Trudi
In: Bednarek, Steffi ed. Climate, Psychology and Change: Psychotherapy in a Time When the Familiar is Dying (pp. 49-64)
ISBN : 9798889840817 | Publisher : North Atlantic Books (In Press) | Published : Berkeley, California, USA