2026 invited Speaker: Siebrecht Vanhooren, PhD

Presenting: On climate anxiety: An experiential-existential systematic case study

In this case study, we present Eva, a 45-year-old white European woman and lifelong activist who suffered from climate anxiety and depression. When I met Eva, she was burdened by the world news on climate change and the direction of politics around the globe. Eva was referred to me by the psychiatric university hospital and CBT-therapists, who felt unequipped to work with climate distress and her existential questions. Eva agreed to be part of a systematic case study during therapy, which meant that she regularly completed questionnaires after every session. This helped us monitor the therapeutic relationship, the process. It gave us a deeper insight in what worked for her and how therapy was (or was not) successful.

Using an experiential-existential approach, we would explore Eva’s climate anxiety, which was deeply rooted in a broader existential suffering. We would explore her death anxiety, her unmet needs concerning her doubt whether she had the right to exist, and her meaninglessness… in the here-and-now, often by using focusing and experiential chair-work. We would alternate between the micro-, meso-, and macro-dimension of her lived experience. While Eva kept wrestling with moments of despair concerning the planet and the world, she also started to experience a new kind of spirituality and discovered love for humankind.

This case-study not only hints at how an experiential-existential psychotherapy approach might be helpful in working with climate anxiety. It also demonstrates how to establish evidence-based practice and an N=1 empirical study that is aligned with humanistic-experiential principles.

Siebrecht Vanhooren, PhD, is professor of clinical psychology at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium.

He teaches counseling skills, psychological interventions, and humanistic, person-centered, experiential, focusing and existential psychotherapies at undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate level. He is the director of the person-centered therapy training programs and the existential well-being counseling program at KU Leuven.

He is a senior staff member of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, the Research Group Clinical Psychology, the Meaning & Existence research center, and the Experiential-Existential Psychotherapy Center (EEP Center) at KU Leuven. He is a committee member of The Eugene T. Gendlin Center for Research in Experiential Philosophy and Psychology at The Focusing Institute (New York). His research includes existential concerns, meaning in life, post-traumatic growth, experiential-existential psychotherapy, focusing, dreamwork, and existential empathy.

He also works as a person-centered experiential-existential psychotherapist, supervisor, and dream-work facilitator at PraxisP (KU Leuven). Last but not least, he loves spending time with his family and friends, hiking in nature, gardening, stargazing, and volunteering in his local community.