[Ccpg] American Prospect: The Peak Shrink / Freaked out about the end of oil? There's a therapist for that.

Mon May 25 09:59:59 PDT 2009

Kathy McMahon
http://www.peakoilblues.com/blog/

>
>> American Prospect article 5 26 2009
>>
>> http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_peak_shrink
>>
>> The Peak Shrink
>>
>> Freaked out about the end of oil? There's a therapist for that.
>>
>>
>> Leigh Ferrara | May 26, 2009
>>
>>
>> In a small liberal town in Massachusetts' Berkshires, Kathy McMahon
>> makes her living spicing up people's sex lives. But arguably her most
>> prescient work is not as a couple's therapist; it's as an online  
>> advice
>> columnist for people who are freaked out about the coming peak-oil
>> crisis.
>>
>> More than three years ago, peak oil -- the idea that we have  
>> exceeded or
>> are fast approaching the earth's maximum capacity for oil  
>> extraction --
>> rocked this middle-class, middle-aged clinical psychologist's mind- 
>> set.
>> In May 2006, shortly after her peak oil "awakening," McMahon started
>> Peak Oil Blues, a "Dear Abby"–like online column about waning fossils
>> fuels, in part to deal with her own growing unease over the  
>> scarcity of
>> oil. "My world was dramatically changed when I learned about peak  
>> oil,"
>> McMahon's introductory post reads. "The more I looked around, the  
>> more
>> things I realized would go, like plastics or kiwi fruit."
>>
>> Although there is little disagreement that the oil supply is  
>> limited, a
>> debate exists between those who believe that we hit peak-oil  
>> production
>> several years ago and others who predict it's still decades away.  
>> Some
>> folks are a bit more concerned than others. Peak-oil doomers, as  
>> they're
>> prone to call themselves, believe life as we know it -- convenient,
>> cheap, plentiful (and with kiwi!) -- is coming to an end, and very  
>> soon.
>> Although McMahon's not one for proclaiming the apocalypse is near,  
>> she
>> doesn't want people asleep at the wheel, either.
>>
>> Many people have "this idea of the fantasy collapse," McMahon told me
>> when I met her in her hometown of Cummington last August. They  
>> imagine
>> "waking up one day and the earth has dramatically changed and there  
>> are
>> people in the street in Golden Hordes invading our neighborhoods and
>> stealing our stuff. People don't want to see collapse as slower and
>> slower every day, but that is a much more likely scenario." This  
>> "slow
>> burn" is already happening, McMahon says. "People need to wake up."
>>
>> Most of McMahon's readers are wide awake. Day after day, she counsels
>> these environmentalists-in-despair on the benefits of being prepared.
>> One advice-seeker, "Bigfoot," pleads for guidance on dealing with his
>> friends who don't understand his peak-oil panic. "My response so  
>> far has
>> been to quit my job and isolate myself from my old friends," he  
>> writes.
>> "I am researching ways to move to a sustainable piece of land located
>> away from the city." Other posters are preparing themselves for the
>> everyday issues of a post-peak-oil world. One reader waffles over the
>> decision to buy or rent in a world short on fuel, while another  
>> searches
>> for the perfect "PO Mate" -- a date with a fellow true believer. For
>> some, McMahon's Web site is less a source of counseling than a  
>> place for
>> them to toot their post-awakening horn. "Simply mom" brags about her
>> family's new rain barrels, composters, and flock of laying hens.
>>
>> When crude oil prices hit a record high of $147 a barrel last July,  
>> peak
>> oil was all anyone was talking about, and McMahon's traffic was  
>> higher
>> than ever. These days, with oil at the bargain-basement price of  
>> $50 a
>> barrel, there's been a dip in the number of letters she receives.
>> "Concern about peak oil rises and falls with the price of gas," she
>> says. But, her site has a regular community of commenters -- the
>> hard-core doomers -- who are still tuned in.
>>
>> And they're not the only ones fretting about the world's diminishing
>> fuel supply. Economist James Hamilton, in a working paper he penned  
>> for
>> the Brookings Institution in March, discusses how our recession was
>> egged on by the '07/'08 oil shocks, which he claims were caused by  
>> our
>> "strong demand" and "stagnating world production." At the beginning  
>> of
>> this year, even the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based
>> energy-advising organization, said "peak oil" could hit as early as
>> 2010. "Transition towns," part of a sustainability movement founded  
>> in
>> England to prepare communities for peak oil, are sprouting up all  
>> over
>> the United States. Last year's spike in the price of oil was a wake- 
>> up
>> call for many -- and some are even broaching the subject with their
>> shrink. McMahon's got some competition.
>>
>> McMahon may dispense her advice for free and online rather than in
>> $80-a-pop private sessions, but plenty of other therapists are  
>> awakening
>> to the market potential in what some are calling "eco anxiety." Linda
>> Buzzell-Saltzman, the founder of the International Association for
>> Ecotherapy, a virtual network of clinicians, students, and educators,
>> says some 600 therapists are tuned in to this relatively new  
>> phenomenon
>> but warns that the number of patients struggling with these  
>> anxieties is
>> hard to quantify. "If you're saying how many people are coming in the
>> door saying, 'I have eco-anxiety,' then it's a smaller number of  
>> people,
>> but if you're talking about during my sessions when I ask people,  
>> 'How
>> do you feel about the world we're leaving our children?', it's almost
>> everybody," Buzzell-Saltzman says.
>>
>> So what are the eco-anxious to do? Many therapists, including  
>> McMahon,
>> recommend getting involved in local community action. When I sat down
>> with McMahon last summer, several members of her town's informal
>> sustainability committee joined us. This group of do-it-yourself
>> enthusiasts host "101s" -- workshops on everything from how to sew a
>> grocery sack from old plastic soil bags to raising your own chickens.
>> Our hosts for the afternoon, Leni Fried and Mike Augspurger, decorate
>> their home in recycled materials. Augspurger runs a successful  
>> business
>> peddling all-terrain hand bikes out of a three-story barn that the
>> couple remodeled themselves (using sustainable materials, of  
>> course). As
>> they chatted knowledgeably about stockpiled goods, end-of-harvest
>> exchanges, and solar-heating configurations, I found myself thinking,
>> "If shit does hit the fan, I want to be on their team."
>>
>> Although it's far too easy to poke fun at the doom and gloom of many
>> peak-oil believers, the movement's underlying goal of  
>> sustainability is
>> more important now than ever -- and their cause more mainstream than
>> their mockers will admit. Let's face it: The world's resources do  
>> feel
>> pretty fragile these days, and many of us think we should probably do
>> something about it. It's just that most of us don't lie awake,  
>> paralyzed
>> by post-oil fears.
>>
>> "If it's not oil," McMahon said to me that afternoon, "it's top  
>> soil, or
>> water, or clean air. We just can't keep living this way." The earth's
>> oil may be finite, but anxiety is in limitless supply.
>>
>> Kathy McMahon, Psy.D.
>> Clinical Psychologist
>> peakshrink at peakoilblues.com
>> www.PeakOilBlues.com - celebrating its third year writing and  
>> answering letters from readers on issues of Peak Oil, Climate  
>> Change, and Economic Collapse
>>
>> thanks to Linda Buzzell, a Santa Barbara ecotherapist, for  
>> forwarding this email. Check out her new book at http://tinyurl.com/qmmn8v
>>
>
>

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