Nurturing Psychological Wisdom and Ecological Awareness
In a Time of Disruption and Climate Anxiety
I work at the intersection between climate change, complexity theory, and the human psyche.
I support leaders, teams, and organizations to develop the competencies and frameworks of care needed to face complexity without collapsing into inaction, to think trans-contextually without losing focus, and to nurture sustainable development while neither denying nor amplifying the challenges ahead. I support teams to confront difficult truths with resilience, ecological awareness, and a regenerative outlook.
With 25 years of experience in systemic change, complexity thinking, and climate psychology, combined with my own experience of leading teams and consulting organizations, I address the urgent need for regenerative change in ways that go beyond the mere correction of what is visible and measurable on the surface. My work delves into the deeper conditions that hold a problem in place.
“How do we think our way through the difficulties we are experiencing when the way we think is part of the problem?”
—Steffi Bednarek
I have worked for national governments, the corporate sector, global financial institutions, the sustainability sector, The Council of Europe, and large NGOs.
My work has been featured in the Huffington Post, the BBC, and numerous international publications and podcasts. Clients include BNY Mellon, Estee Lauder Companies, the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trust and many others.
I initiated and founded national and international projects, headed up mental health services and trauma intervention centres, co-founded the journal 'Explorations into Climate Psychology' and an education project for the Ministry of Education in Luxembourg.
I am an Associate of the Climate Psychology Alliance, 'Firekeeper' at the World Ethics Forum, and Associate of the American Psychological Association’s Climate Change Community of Practitioners.
Short Bio
Acknowledgement
I want to acknowledge that my knowledge and experience is not ‘my own’. It is constantly co-created and rests on the collective wisdom of many teachers, traditions, cultures and life experiences, including lineages that have come before me.
I give gratitude to some of the teachers I have had the pleasure to be working with in person: Francis Weller, Fritjof Capra, Janina Fischer, Richard Schwartz, Babette Rothchild, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Jonathan Horwitz, Benji (the dog) and several sit spots, trees, rivers and dream images.
Schools and traditions that I have learnt from in person: Gestalt Psychotherapy, Schumacher College, Thich That Hanh’s Plum Village Community, IFS Institute, the School of Systems Change, the International Bateson Institute
And many traditions and teachers that keep influencing me greatly; C.G. Jung, the school of phenomenology, Gregory Bateson, Gestalt Psychotherapy and many mythologies, poets, writers and artists.
Image © Tom Hammick