: The long climate emergency challenges psychological practice to address profound shifts in human and planetary systems. This article examines the role of psychological skills - emotional, cognitive, interpersonal, and existential/cultural - in navigating the complexities of climate change and proposes a comprehensive framework to support psychological practitioners, informed by a literature review and the author's experience. Central themes include reducing denial and disengagement, assisting with coping strategies for ecological distress, and fostering collective action for systemic transformation. The framework identifies core competencies such as recognizing and constructively regulating ecological emotions, systems thinking, perspective-taking, conflict resolution, ecoempathy, meaning-making, and regenerative mindsets. Importantly, these skills extend beyond individual psychology to promote cultural and systemic change, including integrating climate-conscious approaches into therapy, education, communication, and community building. Recognizing climate change as an epistemological and existential crisis, psychological practitioners can develop competencies that bridge the gap between distress and action, while also advancing climate justice and intergenerational responsibility. This skills-based approach aligns with sustainability principles and can be adapted for diverse contexts, equipping practitioners to navigate the complex psychological dimensions of the climate crisis. Moreover, psychological green skills should also be incorporated into psychological education.
: The ongoing war in Ukraine presents unprecedented challenges for conducting psychological assessment and intervention, highlighting the need for scalable, multimodal, and accessible mental health screening tools. Traditional self-report methods, such as questionnaires, are limited by context-dependent diagnostic accuracy, variable engagement, vulnerability to misinterpretation, and response distortion. This contribution offers an innovative attention-based approach to assessment that integrates evaluation of behavioral signals, such as eye-tracking metrics of attention bias (AB) derived from webcam-based gaze estimation to processes of symptom screening. Specifically, Anima - a remote, webcam-based AB assessment tool, designed for war-affected settings - is discussed regarding its theoretical basis as a state-sensitive indicator of AB. Anima is presented in light of its methodological advantages through use of free-viewing eye tracking. Implementation constraints under humanitarian crisis conditions are also discussed. Specifically, this contribution offers the result of an investigation, utilizing Anima, regarding daily variations in air-attack severity with measurements of functioning with a sample of 6,339 cases between October 2024 and November 2025. Results showed that temporal changes in dysphoric mood were associated with Russian air strikes' severity. Conclusions are made about the use of the new technologies as well as about assessment methods utilized under conditions of chronic threat, especially self-report or attention-based instruments.
: Language fundamentally shapes identity, belonging, and psychological well-being. In wartime, linguistic choices become politicized, simultaneously influencing individual mental health and collective resilience. Following the February 24, 2022, Russian invasion, Ukraine experienced rapid linguistic transformation as many bilingual and Russian-speaking citizens consciously adopted Ukrainian across personal, professional, and public domains. This paper synthesizes transdisciplinary research examining how media narratives about language affect ontological security and collective resilience in wartime affects Ukraine. We argue that language choice functions as a primary psychological determinant during an existential conflict. Media disseminates strategic narratives framing Ukrainian as both a national survival code and a vessel for agency, creating a symbolic canopy under which identity is reconstructed. Through the Social Identity Approach, we demonstrate that language choice triggers either social cure, when voluntary Ukrainian adoption buffers trauma trough group belonging, or social curse, when exclusionary borders generate traumatization. Voluntary linguistic shift restores ontological security by providing biographical continuity in crisis, establishing psychological boundaries against trauma. Building on the Social Identity Model of Collective Resilience, we show how individual ontological anchors aggregate into collective capacity for sustained resistance. Linguistic transformation thus operates as protective canopy through media scaffolding and as ontological anchor via individual practice. Symbolic choices are transforming into sustainable foundation for both mental well-being and national survival in wartime Ukraine.
Abstract: As climate change has moved from a scientific concern to a highly visible societal and political issue, climate scientists have increasingly been called upon to serve as public interpreters of climate risk. Expectations that scientists engage with media, counter misinformation, and participate in public debate have expanded alongside their existing research, teaching, and administrative responsibilities. Yet despite the growing normalization of public engagement as a professional obligation, the psychological consequences of sustained scientific visibility remain insufficiently theorized within psychology. This article provides a conceptual synthesis of psychological and interdisciplinary research to examine the consequences of sustained public climate communication. Integrating research on emotional labor, moral injury, and occupational stress, it introduces the concept of the visibility bargain: an implicit institutional arrangement through which expectations of public engagement redistribute emotional and ethical burdens from institutions to individual scientists. Drawing on qualitative research, case studies, and communication scholarship, the article argues that for climate scientists, sustained public visibility may be associated with cumulative emotional strain, ethical dissonance, exposure to harassment, and career vulnerability. The visibility bargain is proposed as an integrative framework that explains how these distinct forms of strain become concentrated within individual scientists under conditions of expanding public visibility and limited institutional support. The article outlines implications for psychological research, institutional design, and climate communication practice, emphasizing the need to move from visibility-driven models of public engagement toward sustainability-oriented approaches that integrate communication into workload recognition, professional role design, and institutional support structures. By conceptualizing climate communication as a shared institutional responsibility rather than solely an individual professional obligation, the article contributes a psychologically grounded framework for understanding the human consequences of public climate communication.
Abstract: To mitigate climate change, it is essential to understand the individual predictors of pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Theory and research suggest that experiencing emotions related to climate change may drive engagement in PEB. However, previous research has considered only relatively few climate emotions, overlooking the potentially important role of a broader range of climate emotions as well as their unique contributions. Additionally, previous research largely relied on cross-sectional designs, limiting insights into potential within-person relations. Building on theorizing on climate emotions and PEB, we explore relations between a comprehensive set of 11 climate emotions and four dimensions of PEB (i.e., conservation PEB, citizenship PEB, reduced meat consumption, and sustainable transportation behavior). We further address exploratory research questions regarding differences in relations depending on the dimension of PEB and unique between- and within-person relations. We collected data from N = 1,313 employed adults in Germany across five measurement waves with 3-month time lags. Results of mixed-effects models revealed that, at the between-person level, negative climate emotions (i.e., fear, guilt, and sadness) were positively and moderately related to different dimensions of PEB. Regarding positive climate emotions, attentiveness was positively and moderately related to PEB, whereas the other positive climate emotions yielded mixed effects, depending on the specific dimension of PEB. At the within-person level, climate change–related fear was positively, albeit weakly, related to PEB, whereas climate change–related joviality was negatively and weakly related to PEB.
