My Master’s thesis is entitled « Evaluation of the impacts of speaking groups for eco-anxiety” and is supervised by Abdel-Halim Boudoukha.
The ecological crisis is a rising concern and has its effects on mental health are known as eco-anxiety. Indeed, a lot of people report feelings of distress, anger, and loss of hope towards the future. These concerns can have a negative effect on their relationships, their sleep, their professional life. There are a few studies on the subject, and some authors has already developed scales that can give a measure of eco-anxiety. But there is a gap of knowledge about the treatment of this specific problematic, and while more and more people are concerned by it, no studies has evaluated what can be done to help these people in their distress.
Therefore, the main goal of my thesis is to evaluate the impact of the speaking groups, led by a psychologist, on multiple dimensions of the participant’s lives. To this aim, I designed a questionnaire that uses different scales, such as the STAI-Y-b, State Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger et al., 1983) , the HADS, Hamilton Anxiety and Depression Scale (Zigmond & Snaith, 1983), the LQOLP (Lancashire Quality of Life Profile), the PANAS, Positive and Negative Affect Scale (Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988) and the EMEA (“Echelle de mesure de l’éco-anxiété”). The EMEA was created by Hélène Jalin (Nantes University, 2021) in the context of her doctoral thesis, in 2021. The final version of the scale includes 22 items and evaluates 3 dimensions of eco-anxiety: anxiety-depressive manifestations, relational disturbances, and ecological obsessions. This scale thus makes it possible to obtain a global eco-anxiety score. I also included questions about their way of life, their habitation type and its size in square foot, their field of work, whether they have any children or not, and whether they have a garden or not. The patients responded to the questionnaire before the beginning and after the end of the speaking groups session. I recruited the control group of my study using Facebook groups about the environmental crisis, in order to find people who have a high level of eco-anxiety but who haven’t took part in any speaking group or therapy. Therefore, I used the participant’s scores of the EMEA as an inclusion criteria for this group.
The speaking group was conducted by Anne Jacob. This year, 3 patients attended to the groups. After the session were over, I conducted interviews with the participants, in order to understand how their experience was, and what was the impact of the session in their everyday life. For example, I asked them how their relationships with other people have changed during the course of the speaking session, or about whether they noticed or not a difference in their emotions towards the ecological and climatic crisis. My study is therefore a mixed methods research.
The results of my quantitative study are not significant, which isn’t surprising considering my experimental group is only 3 participants. I have also conducted interviews with patients who have participated in the discussion groups led by Anne Jacob that have taken place in recent years. As for this moment, I still need to find more participants, that is why I reached out to other psychologists, in different cities, in order to ask them if they can put me in contact with their former patients.
I already transcribed the interviews that I have already conducted. Once the interviews and their transcriptions are done, I will analyze them using the thematic analysis method. This method will allow me to identify and analyze the patterns of meaning within the interviews.
Words I’ve learned:
Therefore : Par conséquent
To conduct : Mener
Transcription : Retranscription
Thematic analysis : Analyse thématique
Mixed methods research : Etude mixte
Key words :
Speaking groups : Groupes de parole
Effectiveness evaluation : Évaluation de l’efficacité
Eco-anxiety : Éco-anxiété
Anxiety level : Niveau d’anxiété
Ecological crisis : Crise écologique
Bibliography :
Jalin, H. (2021). Identification des troubles liés à l’éco-anxiété:approche dimensionnelle pour la validation d’une Échelle de Mesure de l’Eco-Anxiété (EMEA) à l’usage des psychologues [Mémoire de Master, Université de Nantes]
Spielberger, C. D., Gorsuch, R. L., Lushene, R., Vagg, P. R., & Jacobs, G. A. (1983). Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070.https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063
Zigmond, A. S., & Snaith, R. P. (1983). The hospital anxiety and depression scale. Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica,67(6), 361–370. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.1983.tb09716.x
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