Author: Jennifer
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Just Breathe
wildfire smoke and climate justice (previously published in the Climate Psychology Alliance – North America blog) It is November of 2018, and I stare out the window of my office, watching a giant, dark gray cloud descend from the northeast. Soon, the familiar scent of smoke is creeping through the cracks in the door frame;…
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Climate change resilience and early childhood mental health
I am pleased to share a video of this presentation that I offered to local leaders in the early childhood sector, on the intersection of climate change, parental mental health, early childhood social-emotional development, and community resilience.
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The Day the Sun Didn’t Rise
Soft hair on my face tickles me awake A small voice Mom there is something wrong with my body I’m wide awake, but it is still night time The clock, the only light teases us with its numbered face, 7:15 No sweetie I reply it is morning time it’s just dark outside today …
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Trauma Anniversaries in a Changing World
Originally published in the Climate Psychology Alliance-North America blog Spring has sprung early again this year in Northern California. And with temperatures at a record setting 90 degrees last week, it appears to be ending early too. It took my New York body a long time to adjust to California’s Mediterranean climate when I first…
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Teaching the Love of Plants: Nature Therapy with Children
Originally published in the Climate Psychology Alliance-North America blog By Jenni Silverstein, LCSW, Santa Rosa, California My new “office” is a garden hidden behind a berm at a therapeutic farm. The farm rescues animals and brings children from foster and group homes to tend them. Each creature comes with its own story of being saved from…
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When the Tubbs Fire Changed My World and My Practice: Holding Space in the Era of Climate Crisis
Originally Published in the Climate Psychology Alliance – North America Blog Psychotherapists, regardless of our theoretical background or treatment modality, share a common critical capacity: the ability to hold space for difficult emotions and experiences. This capacity is hard to measure, define, or teach. It entails a moment-by-moment dance of empathy, compassion, presence, self-reflection, and…
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A Mother’s Love, 2021
You master crawling a spark of rushing energy I shut doors in your path as you crumble beneath me “My job is to keep you safe, my love” I whisper, and turn you back “I must keep you safe” I explain as I pull your small body down from the heights of the couch hold…
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British Petroleum will Manipulate Me No More
I don’t remember when I first heard of the Carbon Footprint. But over the years, the idea escalated from a troubling thought into an obsession. The average American puts 16 tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year. That is 4 times the global average, and 16 times more emissions than people in the global…
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A Tale of Two Fires: 25 Years in California
When I was 20 years old, I worked as a counselor at a backpacking camp in California’s Trinity Alps mountains. An East Coast city-girl by birth, I loved camping and hiking and mountains but I’d never seen a peak above 3000 feet, and I’d never set foot in the wilderness. That summer, I was graced…