Today marks the launch of Unpsychology Magazine Issue 4: the Climate Minds Anthology.

When Unpsychology founder Steve Thorp invited me to co-edit this issue, I was delighted with the opportunity to get involved in a project with so much heart and soul behind it. It touched me especially to help address the elephant in the room that sits with almost every relationship in my life. I think of myself as Cassandra, Pandora and perhaps a bit of Antigone, in my quest to unravel and face up to the twisted logic of the culture I was born into.

I have known all my life that despite the wealth and prosperity of the techno-industrial west, our way of life is essentially corrosive. And not just to communities all around the world and to the environment of our planet Earth, but likewise corrosive to our inner sense of wellbeing and ecological belonging. Exploitation disturbs the mental health of the perpetrator as much as the victim, and a system which thrives on exploitation is a sick one indeed. Even the spoils of systemic, invisible aggression such as the kind found in industrial-scale agriculture, privatisation of the commons and mass advertising to manipulate the values and behaviour of millions of people: these are forms of violence which we tolerate all too easily.

Now those of us living in the 21^st century face the spectre of entrenched global warming and increasingly extreme impacts of climate change and ‘natural resource’ depletion. It is not unusual to turn from bad news – far easier to (try to) ignore it, deny it and avoid it – but this isn’t going to go away. It’s fucking scary, for all of us. Our environs have become so weighed down with the effects of so-called progress that we face a collective environ-mental breakdown.

Unpsychology Magazine was founded by Steve as a response to the emotional journey that we undergo when we face our fears and our demons, whatever they may be. It invites writing and artwork that cultivate wild mind, and that tell “stories to challenge assumptions of culture, psychology and therapy, and to make soul.” This Climate Minds Anthology is Issue 4 in the Unpsychology series, and in it we invite you to consider the questions what is? what might be? and what can be done?

This beautiful digital publication is available to download for free – we want it to be as far-reaching as possible, in the hope that it may be used as a starting point for opening up that most difficult conversation: how do you feel about climate change?

Climate Minds Anthology is part of a campaign to open up a conversational movement, which we are hoping to facilitate with the help of crowdfunding. You can connect to the funding drive here.

We invite you to join Climate Mind Conversations in any of the following ways:

• download Unpsychology 4: Climate Minds Anthology and share it with your own contacts;
• go to the crowdfunding page and if you are able to help support us, please donate to the fund;
• visit Unpsychology Magazine on the Medium platform, where you may join the dialogue around the publication and its content.

There will be a launch event on Thursday 5 April as part of the Alchemy programme at Oriel y Parc in St Davids, Wales where Steve is currently writer-in-residence.

Steve and I both hope that you enjoy Unpsychology Issue 4 and will join us in the Climate Mind Conversation.

xxx Julia