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European Climate Pact
non-profit organisation

Psychologists/Psychotherapists For Future 

Overview

Location

Germany

Sector

CSO/NGO

Organisation type
Non-profit

General Information

Psychologists for Future / Psychotherapists for Future (Psy4F) is a trans-institutional and non-party affiliated climate advocacy group of psychologists and psychotherapists. We see ourselves as a part of the “For Future” movement and thus stand behind the demands of “Fridays for Future”.

What we do: We are psychologists and psychotherapists based in Germany who contribute their psychological and therapeutic expertise to meet the challenges posed by the climate crisis and to facilitate a sustainable future. This includes creating awareness of the climate crisis, facilitating emotional coping strategies and constructive action when dealing with the climate crisis, and supporting climate activists (individuals and groups).

Our affiliation to corporations: The Psy4F as a group are not specifically focused on corporations. However, the sub-group “Neustart Wirtschaft” has been founded inside the Psy4F and has been working for 1,5 years to make corporations a target of the Psy4F’s work, actively seeking contact to several organizations, developing a structured method for conversations with economic corporations, and develop approaches to implement sustainable processes and structures in profit-orientated organizations.

 

Multi-topic

Our actions – the Pathway

Develop and disseminate a psychotherapeutic interview guide to engage with business enterprises and influence corporate climate action, while also leading 5 interviews ourselves.

  • Within the next year (Q2 2024) - We will finalize and make available within the climate movement an interview guide that empowers individuals to engage in conversation with business enterprises and use psychotherapeutic interview tools to address corporate actions in the context of the climate crisis. Currently, a final version is being reviewed within the Psy4Y and is expected to be released officially in Q3 2023.
  • The target audience will be individuals inside the Psy4F during the piloting stage in Q2 and 3 2023 as these individuals mostly already have experience in conversation leading. After that, we will target the For Future movement in general and give opportunities to the general public, too, if there is interest. In general, the interview guide is supposed to stand by itself and can also be used without specific training
  • We as a group will also use the interview guide to conduct at least 5 interviews with companies from the private sector, with the aim of better understanding their situation and motivating them to act on the climate crisis.
  • Already during the development of the interview guide we have actively reached out to companies and lead conversations with corporate representatives. The corporations were so far chosen individually by the interviewer, e. g. by their location or other relation to the interviewer. This strategy has proven to be the most low-threshold and successful so far, though we aim at taking a more structured approach to approaching corporations, e. g. through industry associations (“Verbände”).

Status date: Submitted (10/08/2022)

Data source: Self-reported

More information on the pledge

This pledge is looking to expand the Psy4F’s focus on the corporate world, as most ongoing Psy4F activities aim at groups or individuals in the climate movement, policy makers, the health and education sector and related fields.

  • For this purpose, the interview guide will first be tested on selected individuals and thus finalized. Subsequently, we will conduct training sessions for multipliers and provide support materials to enable people without a background in psychology to conduct interviews using the guide.
  • The training sessions will consist of an overview of the material and some insights and tips gained by the trainers in formerly conducted conversations with corporations. We will start with shorter, low-threshold training sessions (90min) and, if there is interest, offer fewer long workshop-type training sessions.