Optima Presents Attachment, Climate Crisis and the Natural World: Talk and Q&A with Linda Cundy

SEPTEMBER 8TH | 7 PM | ONLINE

We are delighted to present a FREE webinar with Linda Cundy, attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist, educator, author, and Attachment Consultant to the Bowlby Centre.

Attachment, Climate Crisis and the Natural World is a powerful multi-authored collection based on the 2024 Annual John Bowlby Conference. Bringing together leading attachment-oriented psychotherapists, the book explores our relationship with Nature as an attachment figure, a source of refuge and healing, and also as the focus of human neglect, exploitation and loss.

Rethink the relationship between attachment, emotional wellbeing and the climate crisis through this compassionate and thought-provoking exploration of one of the most urgent challenges of our time.

Drawing on Bowlby’s central themes of attachment, separation anxiety, loss and mourning, the contributors consider the psychological impact of global warming, extreme weather, displacement and forced migration. The book also explores how climate-related fear, grief and uncertainty affect nervous systems, relationships and communities, and asks whether ecological crises should now be recognised among the adverse experiences shaping childhood and development.

Alongside these difficult realities, Attachment, Climate Crisis and the Natural World offers hope. Through art, ritual, horticultural therapy, story and connection with the natural world, the authors consider how therapists can help clients find meaning, belonging and emotional resilience. As Jeremy Holmes writes, “We urgently need to rebuild secure relationship to Nature.”

With contributions that honour Bowlby’s commitment to understanding the individual within their relational, social and environmental context, this remarkable collection is an essential resource for psychotherapists, counsellors and other professionals seeking to support people experiencing climate-related anxiety, grief and disorientation.

Linda Cundy is an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist, educator and author, and is the Attachment Consultant to the Bowlby Centre.

Don’t miss your CPD certificate and exclusive reflection pack after the live online event - just select “yes” on the sign-up form to receive yours.

About the guest and host

Linda Cundy is a UK-based psychotherapist, supervisor, consultant, author and trainer who is widely recognised for her contribution to attachment-informed psychotherapy. She has played a significant role in bringing attachment theory into contemporary clinical practice through her writing, teaching and professional leadership. As the author and editor of several influential books, including Developing Adult Attachment and An Introduction to Attachment, Linda is known for making complex attachment concepts accessible and practical for therapists, helping practitioners deepen their understanding of relationships, trauma and the therapeutic process.

Darren Sharpe is an Attachment-Based Psychotherapist, Trainer, and experienced therapeutic Foster Career with a counselling background rooted in humanism, particularly the person-centred approach. With over two decades of experience in training and assessment across various educational and therapeutic settings, he also runs a thriving private counselling practice in Kent.

Optima Presents

Optima Attachment Training is a specialist training and wellbeing organisation for people who want to understand themselves, their relationships, and the patterns that shape how they live and work.

Our work is rooted in attachment-informed practice, but we do not believe insight should stay in theory books or training rooms. It needs to be useful. It needs to make sense in real life.

We offer professional training, therapeutic learning, couples retreats, and restorative retreats for therapists who spend so much of their lives holding others.

At the heart of it all is the same belief: when people understand themselves more clearly, they can relate differently, recover differently, and grow in ways that last.