How to turn denial into a healthier, empowered response

Last week, the World Economic Forum released a report, which surveyed the global economic risk landscape for 2025. Climate and environment topped the list of medium to long-term threats.

Meanwhile, the president of the U.S. is reported to be in the process of banning the word “climate” from official communications, documents and reports. The Department of Homeland Security and FEMA, the agencies responsible for national security and disaster response in times of climate chaos, are being told to erase the word.

I find denial absolutely fascinating. The psychosocial implications astounding.

When I was housebound with ME/CFS, I worked with an incredible therapist. For a few weeks we went through a pattern of me listing the FOMO (fear of missing out) as my colleagues got on with their careers, the sense of failure when I couldn’t look after my son, and the anxiety that comes from being reliant on others. Her response was a surprisingly simple - “but you are ill”. Of course I knew that, but I hadn’t got to the acceptance part. Denial is an evolutionary response to protect us from difficult truths, but damaging in the long term. I learnt that acceptance isn’t giving up, but a healthy and necessary stage of healing.

When it comes to the climate crisis denial crops up in lots of different ways. It affects everyone from the seemingly disengaged, to leading activists. In an incredible interview of Jane Fonda by Joan Baez in 2023, they discussed denial as a coping method. Joan responded that “If we didn’t live in denial 90% of the time, we’d all blow our own brains out.”

I think we have all been there, but I can only imagine what my therapist would say. Tucking difficult climate emotions away through denial always comes back to bite us in the end. It contributes to long-term stress, burn-out, and chronic ill health. 

Discovering the freedom that sits the other side of denial is empowering. In Climate Change Coaching: The Power of Connection to Create Climate Action, Charly Cox and Sarah Flynn describe how this can move us into our most creative and high performing state. A state in which we thrive and flourish. It generates positive psychological and emotional energy which is “collectively contagious”. I know from personal experience that this is healing, and feels incredible. Identifying denial in ourselves and others is a powerful and compassionate way to teach us what might be on the other side.