Many are the parents who have had to help a small child overcome fears of monsters under his bed. A wise parent will comfort the child, assure him he’s protected, teach him about God’s protection. But that wise parent won’t stop there. He’ll show the child there’s no monster under the bed.
That’s not how some mental health professionals want to help young people deal with fears of climate change.
No, they want to treat such fears—dubbed “climate anxiety”—as emotional difficulties that require professional treatment by mental health professionals. I’m going to focus on just one specific method, but therapists everywhere will have the same aim: teach the climate anxious to cope, not deliver them from the anxiety.
NeuroStim TMS Centers are clinics that purport to help people cope with depression, PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and other mood disorders by using TMS—Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.
One page of NeuroStim TMS Centers’ website is titled “Climate Anxiety in 2025: Understanding the Crisis and How to Cope.”
“What Is Climate Anxiety?” The web page says it’s
… chronic fear of environmental doom brought on by climate change. … a defining mental health issue, particularly for younger generations ….
It reports:
A 2021 global survey published in Lancet Planetary Health found that 60 percent of people aged 16 to 25 reported being “very worried” about climate change, and nearly half said this worry negatively affects their daily functioning. From insomnia and panic attacks to depression and existential dread, the emotional burden is growing heavier each year.
The threat of climate anxiety, they say, is rising:
The effects of climate change are no longer projections for a distant future. The global temperature is on pace to exceed a 2.7°F rise above pre-industrial levels by 2030, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As the frequency and severity of natural disasters increase — alongside food insecurity, forced migration, and political instability—so too does emotional stress, particularly among those who expect to live longest with the consequences.
In addition to experiencing direct trauma from events like floods or wildfires, many young people report a pervasive sense of abandonment by older generations. This perception of intergenerational injustice contributes to feelings of hopelessness, anger, and grief.
So, what are the symptoms of climate anxiety?
• Constant worry about environmental collapse
• Panic attacks or chronic stress
• Difficulty sleeping or concentrating
• Obsessive consumption of climate-related news
• Feelings of helplessness, despair, or guilt
• Loss of motivation about future goals, parenting, or careers
So, what should we do to help these young people who suffer “climate anxiety”? NeuroStim TMS offers three “Coping Strategies.” First is “Problem-Focused Coping …[which] involves taking action: protesting, voting, reducing personal carbon footprints, or participating in environmental advocacy.”
But “problem-focused coping” has its own problem. “While it can be empowering, overreliance on action can lead to burnout, especially when individuals feel their efforts are insufficient to meet the scale of the crisis.”
Second is “Emotion-Focused Coping … [which] centers on avoidance or denial — such as avoiding climate news or convincing oneself the problem is exaggerated.”
But this has its own problem. “Though it may offer temporary relief, it often results in disconnection, cynicism, and inaction.” Not a nice outcome.
Third is “Meaning-Focused Coping … [which] encourages individuals to acknowledge distress while also cultivating purpose and resilience.” This, they say, is the most sustainable approach.”
Now, I find this quite interesting. “Meaning-focused coping” is “the most sustainable approach.”
Sustainable? So, the aim is not to deliver the sufferer from “climate anxiety” but to sustain him in “coping” with it?
“Okay, Johnnie, I know you’re terrified that there’s a monster under your bed. Sorry about that. I don’t think I can do anything to reduce your terror. But I can help you acknowledge your distress and cultivate purpose and resilience.”
But NeuroStim TMS isn’t finished. It offers “Practical Ways to Manage Climate Anxiety.” Note that word, manage. Not overcome, not get rid of, just manage.
If I suffer a compound fracture, I don’t just want to manage living with a broken bone sticking out of my arm. I want the bone set and put back where it belongs and healed. People suffering from “climate anxiety” should want something analogous—not just a way to “manage” it, but something that rids them of it.
Is that what NeuroStim TMS offers? You tell me. It suggests five things the climate-anxious can do to “reduce emotional distress”:
- validate their feelings;
- find community with other climate-anxious people;
- focus on agency (which though not explicitly defined appears to mean doing things to reduce your own contribution to climate change);
- balance news consumption (i.e., don’t binge on climate-catastrophist messaging); and, last but very definitely not least,
- “Work with Climate-Aware Therapists: Groups like the Climate Psychiatry Alliance and the Climate Psychology Alliance ….”
There you go!
The web page from which I’ve taken all these quotes (and we’ll put a link to it in our show notes) ends with an offer for a “free NeuroStim TMS Therapy brochure” featuring a smiling woman reclining in a treatment chair while a therapist applies a NeuroStim Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation device to the side of her head and another woman uses a laptop off to the side.
The brochure’s cover has all the earmarks of skilled marketing. “Come and relax at our luxurious Caribbean resort!” The brochure’s free, of course. But the vacation’s going to cost you $2,500.
And though the website doesn’t list actual fees for this “transcranial magnetic stimulation,” it does assure us that “NeuroStim TMS is Now Covered in Most Major Insurance Plans.”
So at least these therapists are going to make a good living from their services, whether patients pay or their insurers do. And they’ll make a better living the longer the patients continue in their “climate anxiety.”
I’m shocked, shocked to find these therapists asking climate-anxious people to spend money on “therapy” to “manage” their anxiety!
But there they go, like Captain Renault in Casablanca, collecting their winnings. No wonder they want a “sustainable approach” to coping with climate anxiety—it will sustain their winnings for years to come!
I’m not a therapist, but I’ve raised seven kids, some of whom were fearful of monsters under their beds. You know what I did? Sure, I comforted them, I hugged them, but I also took them down onto the floor and had them peer under their beds to see that there were no monsters there.
That’s what climate-anxious young—and older—people need if they’re not just to learn to live with but actually overcome their climate anxiety and put it behind them. They need to see that there’s no climate monster lurking under their beds.
The cure for “climate anxiety” doesn’t come from validating feelings or finding community or focusing on agency or balancing new consumption or working with climate-aware therapists (who will only reinforce the fears by affirming the reality of the climate monster under the bed).
No, the cure for “climate anxiety” is to learn there’s no climate monster under the bed. The cure is climate realism.
It’s learning that, contrary to NeuroStim TMS’s claims, there’s been no increase in the frequency or severity of natural disasters or food insecurity caused by climate change.
It’s learning that the percentage of global population killed annually by natural disasters has fallen by more than 99 percent in the last hundred years.
It’s learning that, even according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s forecasts of the impact of climate change on gross world product at the end of this century, that the average person will be earning nearly nine times as much as the average person today, and thus far better able to protect herself from climate-related disasters—and all other problems.
It’s learning, as the Cornwall Alliance put it in our book Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism, that life after climate change will be better than ever.
Know someone who needs to be set free from climate anxiety? Give him a copy of Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism.
The best advice to those suffering “climate anxiety” comes from the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:6–8: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
