More teens are saying they can't sleep because they're worried about the environment.

Today, we're asking, how do we respond to climate anxiety without pathologizing it?

I'm Dr. Josh Fader, the editor-in-chief of the Carlet Child Psychiatry Report,

and co-author of the Child

Medication Fact Book for Psychiatric Practice Second Edition, 2023, and our other book prescribing

psychotropics.

And I'm Mara Government, a licensed clinical social worker in Southern California with a private

practice and an avid reader of the Carlet Psychiatry Reports.

Today, we're talking about climate anxiety, how it's showing up in young people and how we

can support them in session.

We're basing this conversation on an interview we did with Dr. Layla Benoit, who highlights

that climate anxiety isn't like a typical anxiety disorder.

Instead, it often stems from grief, grief about environmental loss.

She calls it environmental grief, and that's a useful distinction.

It's not about distorted thinking. It's a grounded emotional response

to something real. She encourages us to meet kids where they are emotionally, not to minimize

or distract from what they're feeling. And unlike general anxiety, that might be disproportionate

to the situation, this one often makes sense.

When teens say they're afraid,

the world is falling apart,

they're not exaggerating,

they're responding to what they see and hear every day.

...