Thicket

CLIMATE-FOCUSED TRAUMA AND RESILIENCY TRAINING

NAVIGATING OUR EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE AND ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Thicket is an eight-week online experiential training program for medical and mental health providers, educators, activists, researchers, public servants and others confronting this polycrisis in their work and beyond. To effectively serve others and this earth, we need to also confront our own subjective experience and feelings towards this crisis. 

As Susi Moser reminds us, "Burnt-out people aren't equipped to serve a burning planet." 

Thickets provide a small ecosystem of shelter and sustenance, often surrounded by less habitable environments, and arise from the necessity of adaptation to human or naturally disturbed areas. Our Thicket arose from the work and training of two licensed psychotherapists, Eva Jahn and Elizabeth Acuña Driscoll, and their awareness of the global community’s mounting distress of this climate crisis. In this Thicket, we utilize specific evidence-based practices in a community context of a cohort to strengthen self-regulation, emotional intelligence, and strategies to maintain our engagement with the more-than-human world. Evidence-based practices were developed through the study of most current research from environmentalists, psychology experts, and wisdom tradition holders.

Every module will provide offerings from our pillars of emotional resilience:  contemplative practices, nature journey, community support and resources to read, watch, and engage with during our weekly discussion circles. By engaging in these practices, Thicket offers an experiential program to develop the capacity to be more fully present with the unique beauty and challenges of our time. Welcome to Thicket. 

As philosopher Dr. Bayo Akomolafe reminds us: “The times are urgent; let us slow down.”

Thicket

Next Cohort: October 8th - December 3rd 2025

8 weeks - 4 modules

Five 90min zoom meetings on Wednesdays

Time: 2-3:30pm PT/3-4:30pm MT/4-5:30pm CT/5-6:30pm ET

Dates: 10/8, 10/22, 11/5, 11/19, 12/3 2025

Facilitators: Elizabeth Acuña Driscoll and  Eva Jahn
Pricing: $300-700

Offerings

  • Nature Journeys

    Embodied nature-based experiences will offer opportunities for connecting with the more-than-human world. To acknowledge beauty, to name our losses, to feel the earth and hear her songs.

  • Contemplative Practices

    A variety of approaches to contemplative practices will offer weekly guidance focusing on emotional regulation, compassion and nature connection.

  • Community

     Sharing your experiences with your cohort members in a discussion circle provides support and connection in a time when you may feel alone with your feelings towards climate change 

  • Supportive Resources

    Every module will offer a variety resources to support your journey of navigating emotional resilience. Informational and encouraging frameworks will provide perspectives, stories and connections to people who are on this path with you.

In this world, where we can no longer take for granted that our civilization will survive or the conditions on our planet will remain hospitable for complex forms of life, we find ourselves caught in a system of binaries. Wondering whether there is space for our sorrows and outrage or whether it has to remain an unspoken presence at the backs of our minds. Whether our fears are bearable or too much to hold, resulting in denial or feeling magically exceptional and powerful. Abandoning our reality in order to survive is a common way to plead with our terrors. We create dualism in order to save ourselves. 

In order to mourn what we have lost, we need to feel the presence of supportive, attuned, compassionate companions who will not judge. We need to dedicate time and attention to, as Joanna Macy says, honoring our pain for the world, admitting the depths of our anguish and moving through the grief and loss over and over. Making it a daily practice. To fall apart and to come back together. To fall apart and to come back together again. 

That bringing embodied awareness to our pain, is a form of care for the world. And that bending and coming back to center over and over again will actually increase our flexibility and emotional resiliency each time, supporting our capacity for compassion and with that increase the care and love for the more than human world. 

During our 8 weeks together, we will make our way through 4 modules inspired by the Work That Reconnects (Joanna Macy) that will nourish, deepen, widen and transform your emotional landscape while feeling the support of community. The training combines 5 live sessions with an asynchronous learning platform that offers ways to connect with your cohort while being on your personal journey.

What if we were to think about grief as a form of love?

The Facilitators

Elizabeth and Eva created the Thicket level 1 course in 2019 and it has been a well-received training course by many ever since.

  • Co-Founder of CERI, Psychotherapist, and long-term group facilitator

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  • Executive director of CERI, psychotherapist, and long-term group facilitator.

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Testimonials

  • "As an activist working on the climate crisis, my mental health often was put on hold in the face of the urgency of the crises we are facing. The Thicket course helped me to slow down, and take seriously the need to better take care of my mental health. It provided useful tools, strategies and techniques, which will strengthen my well being and, by doing so, my activism too.

    Alex - South Africa Climate Justice Campaigner at 350.org, South Africa

  • "Thicket helped me to connect deeply with myself, my fellow human beings, and the Earth. Through participating in this group, I feel better able to hold my emotions related to climate change and I know what I can do to manage those emotions if they become overwhelming."

    Allegra - Clinical psychology student and researcher on climate change anxiety, Canada

  • "Thicket Training was an opportunity to strengthen my internal resilience in a safe space to express my emotions and have support for my own practice. "

    Nathalia - WTR facilitator, Brazil

  • "My work as an end-of-life doula means I'm navigating vulnerable spaces around grief and loss on a regular basis. But I find that being in a supportive role often means I'm doing less to track my own grief experiences. This is especially true when it comes to personal grief related to climate change, ecosystem collapse, etc. The Thicket course was so valuable in that it offered both a container and an outlet for me to learn about and be in creative dialogue with the various faces of my own grief. The content is dynamic, embodied, and is curated in such a way that all parts of you feel tended to and incorporated into the experience. I truly wish everyone could be gifted this sacred and thoughtful opportunity."

    Elizabeth, End-Of-Life Doula and ED of the Peaceful Presence Project, USA

  • “Eva and Elizabeth model a groundedness and open-heartedness that invited the same from me. I felt safe, understood, appreciated, seen -- with all the shades of feeling and experience I shared with the group.”ist Item

    P - Psychotherapist, USA

  • “Thicket gave me the tools and mindset needed to stay calm and engaged in climate action. I expect I will repeat many of the nature-based exercises in particular as a way to slow down and really appreciate my surroundings.”

    Stephanie - Environmental education program manager, USA