Season 4, Episode 22: Climate Therapy in Italy with Camilla Gamba and Lucia Tecuta

Jun 6

Season 4, Episode 22: Climate Therapy in Italy with Camilla Gamba and Lucia Tecuta

Thomas and Panu engaged with therapists and researchers Camilla Gamba and Lucia Tecuta, who shared their cosmopolitan journeys into climate psychology and eco-therapy. Lucia and Camilla described their bicultural backgrounds in Italy and the US and challenges and opportunities in translating concepts like environmental identity and stewardship into the rich Italian cultural and historic context. Join us for an inspiring discussion of activism and “il dolce far niente.”

Links

Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.

Thomas Doherty: Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty.

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, the show for people around the world who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and environmental issues and their relationship with nature and the earth and of course politics and life. And that's all fair game for our conversations. And we love to talk to people around the world because of course Panu and I are far apart. And today, we are very happy to have two special guests coming in from a country that I love, Italy.

Gamba: So, I'm Camilla Gamba. I'm a therapist in private practice in Milan, Italy.

Tecuta: And I'm Lucia Tecuta. I'm a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist and a researcher at the University of Bologna, calling in from Bologna, Italy.

Doherty: I know Lucia and Camilla through my eco training group, and I've actually been colleagues with them. We have not met in person, but we've been colleagues now for a while. So, it's been really exciting to track their innovative work in Italy around climate psychology and eco-therapy. And I know they've met Panu and Panu has spoken with them. So, this is a nice reunion for us. Panu, you want to get us started?

Pihkala: Warm welcome also on my behalf, lovely to see you again. It also brings warm memories from last December and our meetings in Northern Italy. I know that you both have been listening to the podcast too, so you know that we have this habit of asking something about people's journeys that lead them to who they are so that's one for you also. It would be lovely to hear something like that.

Gamba: Sure, Lucia, do you want to go first?

Tecuta: So, I guess it's a little bit convoluted, but I would start off by saying a bit about how I grew up between Rome, which is where I was born, and then around the age of six I moved from, this big metropolitan city to the East Coast, to the States. I lived a little in Maryland, a little in New Jersey, so I moved from a more urban context to a more, I guess, privileged area. And I had the privilege of growing up with a backyard in Maryland. So, I feel like that's where I really started to appreciate nature and develop that nature connection that was missing for me while I was a kid, living in a big city.

I think part of why I do the work that I do right now, sort of coming full circle from my early experiences, is and actually I heard someone talk about this book in their childhood on another podcast about how they came across this book called 100 Ways Kids Can Save the Planet. I was drawn to it as a kid and that's really where I started to become more aware of what was happening. It was the 90s and Al Gore was vice president and there was a lot of talk about the ozone layer, and I remember being a little bit anxious about that. Now that I look back as a researcher that looks at eco-anxiety, I recognized my feelings as a kid as a form of eco-anxiety that I was feeling at the time. And then that ecological awareness went dormant a little bit through middle school and high school. Then, I moved back to Rome when I was a teenager and came into contact with pretty politicized youth. That's where I became more aware of the economic and social systems that we live in and social injustice.

It all came together for me in the last couple of years through my awareness of climate change. I had some events that really shook me, to use a colloquial term. Most of that is the really intense heat waves that are coming through Italy in the summer. Part of that is also the really bad hailstorms that came through Bologna. This was all right before COVID. I would call it an eco-awakening. After those events, it sorts of all came together and I realized how it's all connected. And that brought back that ecological awareness that was lost throughout the years. And I think also becoming a mother had a big impact on me, just everything sort of you know multiply times a hundred. Just being scared not only for myself and my family origin but also now my son and his future and future generations and what they're going up against.

And then, I guess coincidentally, if you believe in coincidences or synchronicities, I guess another term we could use. I had the chance to sort of brainstorm on psychological constructs to study in relationship to sustainability and eating behaviors. And I was looking at the literature and I actually found your paper, Panu, on climate anxiety and eco-anxiety. And that just rang like a thousand bells in my brain. And I realized, this is what I was feeling first of all. So, it was really validating and really important for me to put those pieces together. And then I was able to give that as an idea that we could look at this, in relation to eating sustainably, but also eating disorder risk. We don't really know how these things sort of move together. And so that's how I feel like everything sort of came full circle starting from like my early childhood experience and the teenage years and being really politicized and coming into contact with anarchists and communists and socialists and all of that. And then the climate eco-awakening bit. And so, I feel like I've finally started to find my place in what I think I should be doing. That’s also thanks to your course, Thomas, that really helped me. It's a big, big puzzle piece to all of this. And then meeting like-minded colleagues who also became friends like Camilla. That's another big piece of this.

Doherty: Yeah, eco friends, as we say.

Tecuta: Eco friends, yeah, to take a turn from your past podcast. So yeah, that's my journey in all of this.

Gamba: Yeah, so my journey is not too different from Lucia. I was born in Milan. My dad's Italian. I lived here until I was eight. Back then, now still to some degree, but back then there was a lot of cement and a lot of air pollution. And then, we moved to California where my mom is originally from. It was a much healthier style there I'd say, where we were growing up in Davis, California. I moved back to Italy when I was 18 and kind of like Lucia was saying, in my time in school in California, I had a lot of awareness of ecology, ecological crisis, and starting to be aware of climate change. So, to some degree, I feel like I've always had climate anxiety without knowing what it was. And then, I like the term used Lucia, the idea that it was dormant for a while. And then in 2021, it was in the middle of the California wildfires and COVID. And I went back visiting from Italy and had what I can call now an eco-awakening. Back then, it just felt like something really disturbing was happening. And so, I did what you do, which is you Google your symptoms and somehow came across the term eco-anxiety and came across your website Thomas or maybe some of the videos you had on YouTube and I found it really interesting. I signed up for the course and, like Lucia was saying, a lot of the puzzle pieces started coming together and then something interesting happened, again the synchronicity, Lucia and I are in this WhatsApp group of English-speaking therapists in Italy. It's an informal group.

Then, I think one day Lucia posted something about research on climate anxiety. And I just jumped in there and said, hey you also know about this very niche thing in Italy, because at the time, it felt like I knew very few people who were talking about this. And then we just kind of rolled with it. We took the course with Thomas; we started translating a few things that we thought would be useful. We translated the Climate Psychology Alliance handbook into Italian as well as the climate emotion wheel, we thought that was a really cool tool. So, that's kind of how we got started. And Thomas definitely also gave us the courage to say, just get in there and do the work, even if you don't feel like you know it all. You don't have to know it all to start doing this work, so here we are.

Pihkala: Thanks for sharing all that. That's very interesting and wonderful to hear. There are similarities in people's journeys and then all kinds of nuances and differences. So that's always very interesting to hear. And we'd love to talk a bit more about the actual work you are doing around climate psychology and environmental psychology in Italy. But perhaps we could start by asking you something about the Italian relationships to the modern human world and perhaps especially if that has an impact on how people see issues related to climate change and environmental change. I know this is a very big question and there's a lot of variation inside each country, but it would be interesting to hear some of your observations on that.

Gamba: Sure. I think one of the first things to say is that Italy is a very varied country, meaning each region has its own very specific history, its own language, now they call them dialects, and its own culture. So, I think it depends on where you go and also thinking about the specific history in relation to the land, how the land has been used over time, who's been occupying and using the land and who hasn't is very different from region to region. A lot of Italy is very densely populated and a lot of the territory, if it's not urban, it's most likely agriculture. So maybe that's one piece around the relationship to nature. And then we have the Alps and the mountains, which are maybe one of the few places that people can go to and do go to if they want to feel that they can get away and commune with nature. We're sharing with Lucia, thinking about how we can represent Italians' relationship to nature? It's a tricky one because it's been very built up. The coasts, for example, cater to a certain type of tourism. I feel like there's very little nature left there. There's a lot of cement, a lot of places that cater to tourists who maybe want to go and listen to music and dance and be on the beach with their aperitivo. The same is happening more and more to the mountains, ski resorts. So, there is some tension around that.

Tecuta: Yeah, there's been a lot of, I guess what you could call illegal construction or development in a lot of natural areas. For example, a lot of the coast is privatized with what I guess is called beach clubs. So, I guess the relationship with nature, I don't want to use words that are too strong, is not particularly respectful in that sense. A lot of destruction.

Gamba: It feels like nature's been sacrificed to cater to economic wants.

Tecuta: Right, economic growth and tourism, like Camilla was saying, that's definitely a big, big issue. So, it's very difficult. I imagine for whoever's involved in conservation efforts and things like that. And Italy went through quite a dramatic economic boom, I guess in the 60s. I think after World War II, there's definitely a lot of poverty and hardship, a lot of migration from the South to the North, from Southern agricultural areas to the Northern cities that promised more work opportunities. So, it's dramatically changed probably in the last 70, 80 years or so. And I feel like in the Italian collective unconscious, this idea of an association between being in the city, and probably this is common in a lot of cultures and countries, but moving to the city or living in a city is associated with having made it somehow, right? Having left, sort of poor conditions and hardships. So, it's hard to find outside of specific environments, for example mountain areas, an appreciation and a respect for nature.

Gamba: Yeah, it's also really hard to find in Italy. Coming from California where we have big wilderness spaces, it's really hard in Italy to find large, intact, healthy ecosystems. In Italian, we don't even have a word for wilderness, which I always thought was really interesting. But having said this about certain types of tourism, there are a few trends that I think are interesting. One is hiking and people really wanting to enjoy the mountains for what they are. In Italy we have the CAI, it's the Club Alpino Italiano. It's a really large non-profit organization which is in charge of what the US Forest Service does. So, they make sure that the trails are kept nicely and they do a lot of trainings and things like that. They have a fantastic rescue service, which I recently had the opportunity to test. I broke my ankle hiking, and I got a really good rescue operation taking place. So, shout out to the CAI volunteers or all volunteers. And then another interesting trend is what we call here agriturismo. So, tourism that goes to agricultural places is one of the ways to reconnect with nature. They might be going to farmhouses or places where they're enjoying both the place and the environment, but also the food. Because of course, food is a big part of the culture here.

Tecuta: Yeah, there is definitely a movement for slow food, organic farming. And it's interesting, there's also a very niche trend of younger people. Most of them sort of migrate from the south to the northern cities to go to university or whatever, but then being frustrated and sort of disillusioned by the economic crises and the recessions and not finding jobs easily. Some of them are actually moving back south, back to more natural settings and even opening up their own small farms and going back to those kinds of roots. So that's another interesting trend, sort of trying to take care also of whatever nature is left. And then there's also another interesting movement now that I think about which is confiscated lands from the mafia. There are several associations that take those lands and of course they try to clean them up or try to give them back to the people and turn them into something socially useful. And you can even buy some products in some supermarkets that use whatever grains or raw materials to make pasta, coffee, or whatever it is. And so, when you buy that product, you're buying something that's from the confiscated mafia lands. And you're giving money to these really great initiatives. So, there's little niche movements here and there that kind of give you hope that some good is happening.

Pihkala: Yeah, that's very interesting and for many listeners depending on where you come from. It's fascinating to think about these geographical and ecological factors. In Europe, we have places like the Netherlands, where there's even more management of nature, more than the human world. Then in Italy, there's more than in Finland, partly because there's been more population and older human history, so there's been more time to spread. I have to mention a very interesting historical novel by Mika Waltari, the greatest historical novel writer of Finland in 20th century, which is about the time of the Etruscans and that transition time where there were still animistic beliefs in Italy among the old tribes, but slowly the Roman Empire was building up and the changes were happening. Anyway, that's slightly an anecdote. But Lucia, you went in the direction of counter movements. And I would guess that if there's a strong utilitarian hegemonic attitude, there might also be more ecological counter movements. And I met some interesting young people, shout to Lorenzo also here. So, would you like to say a bit about those?

Tecuta: Sure, I think Camilla's more familiar with the work that Lorenzo does, if you wanted to talk about that.

Gamba: Yeah, I'm trying to think of what Lorenzo's doing, but also the network. I think that's also really interesting. I think the counter movement also involves a lot of just people pooling resources together in a very informal way. And so maybe some people like Lorenzo are bringing in a lot of eco-somatic work. There are different people doing different pieces, the psyche and the local lands and the community and the body. They’re putting all these different pieces together. That’s kind of what's coming to mind, maybe like this web that different people are weaving. And yes, Lorenzo is part of the web and Lucia and everybody doing a little piece and creating altogether in this counter movement. Nobody has the manual of how to do it. And I think we're all just trying something different and doing it together and seeing what works. There is definitely a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of interest. Maybe we don't know exactly where we're all going with this, but it's kind of fun to watch it evolve and emerge. I don't know, Lucia, if you have a similar view of all this.

Tecuta: Yeah, I mean there's growing interest and curiosity in people that work in more mainstream settings. Like we've been contacted by journalists recently to talk about climate psychology and nature connection. We're trying to propose workshops and collaborate with them. For example, there’s the Earth Festival that's coming up in Turin in November that we're thinking of offering a workshop at and yeah, it's definitely a work in process.

Gamba: Yeah, it's sort of a new thing to be a psychologist and to be talking about nature more than the human world and climate change. I think one of the things we've been finding is the more we are getting to know people, the more people are getting to know about the work, then we're starting to get interest. And so, then it's about planning and writing project proposals and getting funding. Lucia and I are just about to finish recording an eight-hour climate anxiety eco-psychology course that's going to be available for therapists as part of their continuing education credit. So, there are lots of things emerging.

Doherty: Yeah, this is really wonderful. This is what we hoped to do today. We also talked to Matteo Innocenti recently and we'll have an episode. He's a psychiatrist in Italy that you both know. And of course, he's working on disasters and the flooding. That's another whole theme we could get into, which we don't have to get into details. I think the general theme that I'm hearing over all of this episode, and listeners, you can think about this, is just the idea of translation as a theme. Like we're translating these ideas. Both Lucia and Camilla have this international cosmopolitan life where they know American culture and Italian culture. So, they're translating and there's a really fruitful translation. Well, obviously many people in America idolize Italy and the land and the connection with family and the whole culture. And of course, there's this idea of rewilding and being in nature and wilderness and these kinds of values for the US. So, there's this cross theme, which is beautiful.

There are so many more connections, we can't forget Pope Francis and his work as being one of the most potentially one of the most influential environmentalists of our era and I know the Catholic Church is also huge and diverse as well, but still we have these voices. We’ve got the pilgrimage tracks in Italy and the religious culture and its working land and nature. It’s just that depth of modern human history that literally you can excavate ruins. So, it is beautiful. So, I feel like you both are so well positioned because the pressures of climate change are going to make people more aware of their connections with nature. Years and years ago, Theodore Roszak was talking about eco-psychology, and he wanted people's connection with nature to be a celebration and something they love, not just a way called a grim duty to say the planet. So, I feel like there's this synergy between, I don't know what the word in Italian is, like joie de vivre or life philosophy, which is very nature based and the pressures of climate change and how to preserve. I think preservation of some of these treasured ways is also going to have to be a thing. Even with the Olympics and potential for snow in the Alps. So, you're just really well positioned to do whatever you can. You know, just do your part and then help new people.

Gamba: Yeah, the theme of translation is here, but another image that comes to mind is pollinators. You know, taking something good from here and bringing it over there and then making your eco-friends along the way. And so having that be a fun journey.

Tecuta: Yeah, definitely. And trying to also mesh different values. Because if we're talking about, I can't generalize to all Italians, the sort of long history of seeing nature as something tied to hardship and to work and trying to bring in seeing nature as something that is inherently valuable can be difficult to do sometimes, but really, really important. Especially in the context of everything that's happening, Olympics included. And not forget that or get carried away with just destroying what you need to destroy to make room for new stuff. That's definitely a theme for me.

Pihkala: What are some of the things, Lucia and Camilla, that you are passionate about when you think about the next couple of years and your sort of vocation on this planet?

Gamba: I think the whole theme of climate change is really important and I've been trying to get up to speed with being knowledgeable about what's happening and that's really important, but I do feel so much more joy when it comes to fostering nature connection and being in nature. I’m starting to do walk and talk therapy and trying to shift the setting of my work to more natural spaces. And what's really fun about this, going back to the eco-friends, is we've got a group of therapists who are wanting to do that together. So, the peer supervision thing to have that spread in Italy and to maybe get our professional boards on board with this to help us out with guidelines and insurance and all of that. That's something that I'm feeling really excited about.

Tecuta: Yeah, I think the same here. I'm working mostly as a researcher right now, but what I'd really like to do is spend way more time and dedicate more time to, besides the trainings that we're doing for colleagues and psychotherapists, working education or higher training or whatever is working more in the community. So even doing more workshops, like the ones that we've just started doing together to use nature connection, but I kind of want to say as a leverage that you should care about climate change as well. And sort of using that as Thomas was saying, use the joy to get people on board on what's happening, which is pretty dramatic here in Italy. The changes are quite drastic already and we’re seeing a lot of it. So, I would love to find a way of putting the two together and offering something that does spark change and hopefully get bigger players on board because you need the funding to do this kind of thing. So, that's definitely the direction where I'm headed hopefully.

Doherty: Yeah, this is great. As always, we could go on. We say every episode we could do another half an hour because there's so much to talk about. But listeners, I think this scratched the surface of the broad cultural trends in Italy and things that are going on. And we'll have some links to things that people might want to look at in our show notes. Camilla and Lucia, you can let us know about your training and various things. Maybe in that joy theme, and Panu and I are both really into language and this idea, what could listeners around the world take away as a word or a concept from Italian culture? You don't have to have the perfect one, but what are some things that come up about words or phrases or concepts that evoke this connection with nature, beauty, family, and the earth.

Gamba: So, the first thing just popped into my head, so I won't think too hard about whether it's a good answer or not. It's the “irimedi della Nonna.” It's a big thing. So grandmother's remedies. So that's usually the first go-to thing. If you have an upset stomach or a runny nose or a headache or cramps or whatever, then you're going to go to “irimedi della Nonna,” which is bound to be nature-based.

Tecuta: Yeah, that's a good one.

Doherty: Yeah, that's beautiful. We'll get the proper spelling of that. Make sure we get it in there.

Tecuta: I actually thought of another one which is so typically Italian, the one that everyone knows, but I don't know if it's right for this context, but the one that came to mind is “il dolce farniente,” which is like the sweetness of doing nothing. And I like it in the context of climate change and everything that's happening to our political and economic system as a way that's subversive. You don't have to consume, you don't have to produce, you could just be. I think it ties really well with enjoying nature. Because in nature, it doesn't ask anything of you, right? Which I think is something that's so great that you get from nature connection. You're not there as a consumer, as a worker, as a part of this machine like the system that we live in.

Gamba: Yeah, and there is a sweetness to that, right. Il dolce, the sweet, farniente, doing nothing.

Tecuta: Yeah, enjoying just being because that's so important to recharge to be able to stay in the movement for the long run if we're thinking about climate change related work.

Doherty: It's perfect. In the U.S., we have this idea of rest is resistance and then the nap ministry, which is a radical claiming of an African American culture of claiming the ability to rest. So, there's a radical side to it. I think my stereotype of Italy is that you might rush a little bit in the city, but people don't rush. That's not a cool thing to do. You want to be elegant and move slowly and savor life and so I think that's a piece. I also think that joy of being in the sun or being in nature and just this the fruit of and sweetness of life is a multicultural ideal and it is something that gets threatened and taken away. So, it's something we have to protect and teach people to do and teach our children to do.

Gamba: Yeah, and Italians are really good about enjoying the food and they want it to be from good ingredients. Mindful eating is partly embedded in Italian culture and just being aware of the ingredients and where they're coming from.

Doherty: Yeah. So, breaking down some of these artificial barriers between wilderness and nature and being the right environmentalist and all this kind of stuff. This has been great. We're going to stay in connection because we're all working on shared projects. And I have been to Italy years ago, when I was younger, but I look forward to getting back again.

Gamba: Yeah, it would be great to meet you in person.

Tecuta: Yeah, let us know.

Doherty: Yeah. Well, Panu, what's the rest of your evening like here?

Pihkala: Thank you very much, Lucia and Camilla. It's been wonderful discussing these things with you. I really loved the words. I think I'm going to practice some blessed undoing for the evening.

Tecuta: Good idea.

Doherty: And where are you both going today for the rest of your evenings?

Gamba: Just relaxing at home. We've been working hard, Lucia and I, so I think a good rest is resistance maybe.

Tecuta: Yeah, exactly. I could rest relatively because I have an almost four-year-old coming back from school soon. So, I'll try to come up with some restful games to play with him.

Doherty: All right. Well, this has been beautiful.

Gamba: Thank you so much.

Tecuta: Thank you for the opportunity to chat.

Doherty: Listeners, I hope you enjoyed our little international cosmopolitan translating conversation today. Listeners and all of you, be well. Take care.

Pihkala: Take care.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

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Season 4, Episode 22: Climate Therapy in Italy with Camilla Gamba and Lucia Tecuta

Season 4, Episode 21: Climate Psychology in Italy with Matteo Innocenti