Panu sometimes travels for conferences and meetings, because IRL encounters between people are so special. In Mid-December, he spent a week in Northern Italy, due to a keynote speaker invitation by University of Parma and their project on Habits and environmental issues. Panu spoke about the complexity of habits in relation to eco-emotions: people can form various kinds of habits in connection to what they feel about the ecological crisis. Some habits have good consequences, while other habits help people to stay overly distanced from “ecological reality”. One of the main organizers, Ph.D. student Giovanni Mariotti, works on emotional regulation and ecological issues. Dr. Ana Honnacker, another speaker, shares many interests with Panu on eco-emotions, grief, ritual, and more-than-humans.
Many lovely meetings and encounters ensued. In Milan, Panu met with many Italians who work with climate emotions and climate anxiety. Dr. Matteo Innocenti is a well-known author in Italy about “ecoansia”, and he is the chairperson of the Italian Climate Anxiety Association: a network of psychological professionals who support people with climate anxiety. Chiara Comerci serves as an intern in this work, and they and Panu had in-depth discussions about various impacts of the ecological crisis. For example, in Italy, there has been major floods, intensified by climate change, and an adequate societal response is lacking.
It was delightful to meet in person with Dr. Camilla Gamba, a psychotherapist who has participated with Panu to Dr. Thomas Doherty’s online groups about environmentally aware counseling, and her close colleague in eco-emotion work, Dr. Lucia Tecuta. Camilla and Lucia facilitate workshops for various audiences, and it was most interesting to compare experiences and methods in such work.
Naturally, art is part of travelling in Italy, and highlights on that front included seeing Leonardo da Vinci’s La Scapigliata in the National Gallery in Parma.