In two-to-three pages, please describe your background and interest in this certificate. Tell us anything pertinent regarding your personal development, professional experience, climate-related activism, climate science, professional license(s) held and/or the stage you are in with regard to your clinical licensure, training or internship. Include descriptions of your training in psychotherapy, climate psychology, or related areas. Share how you learned didactically and where you practiced these skills and knowledge sets.

All accepted applicants will be able to select their program fee from the designated range, as well as choose their payment plan option. All accepted students are also eligible for payment plan options (one, two, or four installments) at no extra charge. 

As part of our mission to expand and diversify the field of climate psychology, CIIS Public Programs has designated funds to offer up to (2) Full Scholarships and (4) Half Scholarships every cohort for those in financial need. As per our commitment to diversity and inclusion, at least half of all scholarship funds will be designated to those who identify as queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color (QTBIPOC).

The Future Leader Scholarships are specifically for applicants who plan to use their climate psychology certification not only to expand their personal practice, but to pursue a leadership position within the field of climate psychology. Examples of this could include, but not be limited to:

• Developing programming to provide emotional support to climate activist organizations
• Conducting research into the mental health dimensions of the climate crisis
• Training clinicians on assessing and treating climate distress
• Working with existing community resources, including first responders, to increase awareness of mental health consequences of climate related disasters
• Developing climate curricula for schools
• Teaching parenting skills
• Engaging in climate communications
• Providing behavioral science consultation to agriculture and land use work
• Working with environmental justice groups in BIPOC communities
• Integrating emotional sustainability themes in business or tech organizations

To apply, please upload a one-to-two page essay with your program application that answers the following questions:

• How will you pursue a leadership position within the field of climate psychology after you complete your training?
• How will you bring the climate psychology education you receive in this program to others in your professional and/or other communities?
• What is your financial situation and why are you applying for a scholarship?

Fall 2024: A non-refundable application fee of $50 is due at the time of application. Payment of the program fee (or the first payment of your payment plan) must be received by September 1st, to secure your space in the program. Payment plans are available and will be provided to accepted applicants. If a student withdraws before October 1st, fifty percent of the full fee will be due. The full fee is due if a student withdraws after October 1st.

Spring 2025: A non-refundable application fee of $50 is due at the time of application. Payment of the program fee (or the first payment of your payment plan) must be received by February 1st, to secure your space in the program. Payment plans are available and will be provided to accepted applicants. If a student withdraws before March 1st, fifty percent of the full fee will be due. The full fee is due if a student withdraws after March 1st.

Applicants will be notified within two weeks of the application deadline, or sooner.

This course lays the foundation of the causes and mental health implications of the climate emergency. A summary of current climate science as well as the systemic environmental/social issues rooted in culture and politics are introduced. There will be discussion of how these concepts are rooted in a climate aware therapeutic stance, with an introduction to skill development highlighting resilience, hope, encouragement of activism, and self-regulation. Key climate psychology terms and concepts will be explored, including unconscious processes that underlie our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors about sustainability; evidence-based therapeutic practices for addressing mental health impacts of environmental disasters and longer term climate-induced chronic stress; as well as our psychological and physical interdependence with nature.

The goal of this workshop is to develop the participants' collective capacity to hold the grief of being alive with an earth in pain without falling into immobility and depression. In order to move towards a decolonialized future, we must first see clearly what harmful facets of modern civilization we have normalized into ignoring, including how Western education and socialization left us unequipped to face reality, navigate complexity and process collective grief. Participants will develop skills to learn how to start interrupting harmful patterns and develop new internal and external resources for developing their emotional sobriety, relational maturity, intellectual discernment, and intergenerational responsibility.

The climate crisis is here and while many of us are deeply distressed, many others are hardly thinking about it. In other words, some people are feeling and others are avoiding. As therapists, how do we work with these different experiences, and how do we manage our own feelings while doing so? It’s incredibly difficult to talk about stirring material, and what could be more stirring than climate change? Most of us didn’t grow up receiving welcoming reactions to all our thoughts and feelings, and we didn’t learn how to express ourselves directly and constructively. Instead we got good at distracting, shutting down, and disconnecting.

Group psychotherapy is a powerful format for developing new patterns. Group therapists have worked for decades to understand how to help people have and express difficult feelings within their relationships in constructive ways, such that these relationships are deepened and enriched rather than damaged. In this workshop we will learn the principles of group psychotherapy, using experiential practice, and study how group work can help all of us with the climate crisis. Participants will experience how group can help both distressed people communicate more effectively and resistant people tolerate feelings they don’t want to have.

As future generations, children and young people have the largest stake in finding solutions to the climate and biodiversity emergency, but so often the narrative around climate crisis communication and related psychological trauma can split between protecting children from the facts or terrifying them by telling them too much. But maybe we need to hold this tension of opposites. Can we find ways to protect children whilst validating and acknowledging their fears? As children take to the streets and the law courts to express their pain, frustration, and despair, do we, the “adults”, need to examine our defenses and learn to really listen to them more honestly, to tolerate their distress, to face our guilt, grief and shame and find ways to navigate the new world that is emerging together?

In this course, we will discuss recent research on the mental health and psychological impacts of climate change on children and young people, make links with legal cases in the European Court of Human Rights arguing that failure to act on climate change constitutes a violation of human rights of children, and reflect on the emergent mental health crisis of climate anxiety from a global perspective drawing on research from the UK, US, Philippines, Maldives, and Europe.

What are the psycho-social challenges faced by those who work day in and day out on the "frontlines" of climate change? This session will introduce course participants to the particular psychological challenges "climate professionals" face, why it is essential to focus on this audience, why they find it difficult to seek out psycho-therapeutic or peer support, and what kinds of skills and support they need to continue to do their essential work. Participants will learn about the implications of failing to support these climate professionals. Drawing on empirical research, practical experience and a pilot program to meet climate professionals' needs, the session will engage course participants in exploring approaches and modalities that might be supportive of climate professionals.

The instructor will offer a behind the scenes look at her experience with climate distress, journey into the field, and insights gained along the way about the transformative potential of climate anxiety and grief. Using interactive sessions with students throughout, she will offer a radical interdisciplinarian's view on the many ways in which climate psychologists are in the business of shifting cultural norms and how we can do so constructively using our unique gifts and experiences. Attention is paid to why we must take extra care to be gentle with ourselves when doing this work, yet may fail to in many instances, given the hard truths involved in being a climate professional. 

Ecopsychology is informed by systems theory and connects ecological principles with psychology’s contributions to stress reduction and wellness. Ecotherapy promotes human well-being through direct experience of nature, sometimes working from frameworks of ancestral healing and Indigenous knowledge, to encourage awareness that our psyches and bodies are not isolated or separate from our environment and promotes caring for and connection with the Earth. Climate Psychology is an emerging, related discipline that embraces many of the same values and aims to specifically understand the impact of the climate and ecological emergency (CEE) on mental health as well as the barriers to changing the “business as usual” mindset that perpetuates ecocide. Climate psychology provides guidance for understanding and confronting society-wide reluctance to take appropriate action in relation to the escalating threat of climate change as well as psychological defenses which make it more difficult to develop solutions. Environmental, racial, and economic justice are seen as key to the reclamation of a healthy planet and transformation of the systems that have contributed to the CEE. Awareness of these inequities along with climate science facts, examination of consumerist values, development of resilience, and use of empowering climate messaging are all part of the field of Climate Psychology.

Emotional distress triggered by climate change is already showing up in our practices and will only increase in the coming years. According to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications, 70% of Americans are very or somewhat worried about global warming and more than half state they are being harmed right now (2021). While much of our mental health training is applicable to addressing eco-anxiety, grief and other forms of climate-triggered dread, there are specific competencies required to skillfully address this escalating crisis. This program will equip clinicians and related professionals with clinical perspectives and therapeutic tools to effectively work with this rapidly emerging issue.

Yes, allied professionals are encouraged to apply. However, it's important that all practitioners who are not clinically licensed are aware that we are teaching from a context of both clinically licensed therapists and coaches who work within different professional frames.

The Climate Psychology Certificate program is offered by an accredited university and this program meets the requirements for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) and is approved for 60 CEs for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT licenses:

• LCSWs and MFTs from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board for approval.
• CIIS is not authorized to issue APA CEs. However, we will work with a third-party provider to offer APA CEs for certain courses within the certificate, upon request.
• For questions about BBS CEs, contact CIIS Public Program at publicprograms@ciis.edu.

No. In addition to providing skills and training in climate psychology, this program intentionally limits the size of the cohort in order to cultivate strong connections among the participants that supports the possibility of long-term collaborations. For this reason, participants must be able to attend all the sessions and the classes will not be recorded.

Unfortunately, certificate programs are not eligible for student loans. Certificates are technically considered “Continuing Education” and students are not considered matriculated college students, and so most tuition-based scholarships and loans do not apply.

All CIIS current students, faculty, staff, and alumni are eligible for the CIIS discount. Former graduates of our other certificate programs are also eligible for the discount.

“I would highly recommend this certificate program to anyone looking for training regarding climate psychology. They have the most renowned team of presenters and facilitators in this field.”

“This program was personally and professionally meaningful, It offered an opportunity to process climate grief, learn new information, and gain practical skills that I will be able to use with clients.”

“The instructors created a learning environment that was compassionate, relational, and challenging. I feel more empowered to weave climate aware therapeutic practices into my teaching, writing and research.”

“The program covered a wide range of approaches from analytical to spiritual. But what will stay with me the most is some profound ways people opened up here, and opened something up in me. You can't write that into a curriculum.”

"The Climate Psychology Certificate Program through CIIS is excellent! Our group members, the speakers and workshop leaders, and our facilitators all brought such richness, breadth, and depth to the overall experience. The guest speakers were diverse in their experience and their professional work, which provided a little for everyone and ample opportunity to expand your horizons.”

“The nature of this course is that it will have to keep evolving and I give it a high rating because I trust it to do so! I found the shapers of this program to be engaged in growing and learning - keeping this program from getting stale or out of touch. I saw engaged effort and hands-on care for making this program be all it can be. Through this program my knowledge of climate psychology and ability to engage in this field was expanded and deepened.”

“This program was moving and informative, not just of climate psychology but of the ways in which the field of psychology is poised to adapt towards justice and decoloniality. I am so inspired by the cutting-edge work our presenters and my peers are doing to respond to the climate crisis and it’s deeper roots in racism and colonialism.”

“The CIIS Climate Psychology Certificate program is an extraordinarily rich experience offering an array of outstanding presenters on a variety of topics, all relevant to becoming a climate aware professional with both individuals and communities. If you feel the "call" say YES to this amazing program.”

“I am so glad I participated in this program - as someone who is not a clinician, I'm graduating feeling much more prepared to bring a climate psychology perspective in the work I do in climate advocacy. It was a gift to learn from such a rich array of presenters and fellow students, and I'd highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to better understand how to navigate the inner terrain of climate change in their professional lives.”