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Event Overview:

Environmental professionals, those working in the environmental sector and on the front-lines against the unfolding climate crisis face unique challenges. Join us for an evening panel these challenges and how we can support those working closest to the crisis. Participants will learn practical nervous system and relational tools to support clients from these fields, while also understanding that individual healing occurs within systems that may resist change. The goal is to equip mental health professionals to better care for the people who are caring for the planet. Interventions and strategies helpful for assisting this population will be discussed with the goal of assisting and further equipping psychotherapists in their work with these groups.

Participants will…

   • Describe the unique stressors contributing to burnout, moral injury, and ecological grief among conservation and environmental professionals.
   • Explain how the historically masculine, emotion-suppressing culture of conservation creates vulnerability to distress and influences client experiences within these systems.
   • Identify two practical approaches—one nervous-system based and one relational/emotional tool—to support clients working in conservation and climate-facing fields.
   • Describe the two types of moral injury
   • Explore at least one unique stressor often experienced by team or department leaders in the current environment of layoffs, funding cuts, data deletions, and disparagement of scientists
   • Examine the 3 types of coping mechanisms Panu Pikhala’s research has suggested people need to integrate for coping with climate distress effectively, with one behavioral example for each of a way to operationalize the coping mechanism.


Meet Your Presenter:

Dr. Borys, a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America’s STEM and Scientist Professional Support Committee, co-developed and has presented to scientific groups, NGO’s, sustainability work teams, and science activist groups, specially-tailored didactic-experiential group interventions for assisting them with emotional coping and resilience. Dr. Borys will describe these interventions and the components she and her colleagues have found useful in assisting this population, as well some stressors particular to department and team leaders; aspects of the socialization and educational process for scientists that can create special vulnerabilities or challenges; and common somatic, intra-psychic, and interpersonal responses of this group to layoffs, funding cuts and disparagement of science.

Michelle Doerr - Drawing from survey data across conservation fields, lived experience as a wildlife biologist, and years of consulting on wellbeing and organizational culture, this presentation explores the unique stressors contributing to burnout, moral injury, anticipatory anxiety, and ecological grief among environmental professionals. Michelle examines how scientific and agency socialization reinforce a mind–body split, why emotion has been systematically excluded from conservation identity, and how political instability deepens distress.


Date: April 13, 2026

Time: 7 - 8:30pm ET

This event will be recorded

This event has been approved for 1.5 credits

 

CEC Info for CCPA Members: 

To receive your CEC, you are required to register with the same email as your member portal profile. Log in to your portal to confirm.

 

Further Information:

Questions | Email events@ccpa-accp.ca

More Events | Visit ccpa-accp.ca/eventcalendar

 

CIC Chapter Event - Working with Environmental Professionals

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  • Monday Apr 13 2026, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM