{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]],"date-time":"2026-09-29T04:58:39Z","timestamp":1790657919836,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":58,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]],"date-time":"2026-09-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790640000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Cognit."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Climate change is increasingly recognized not only as an environmental hazard but also as a condition that reorganizes perception, attention, future-oriented worry, moral appraisal, efficacy judgments, and decision-making. This conceptual analysis reframes eco-anxiety as a paradigmatic form of eco-affective cognition: a dynamic coupling of ecological threat salience, future simulation, responsibility appraisal, and efficacy appraisal under environmental uncertainty. The article develops the Acceptance\u2013Externalization\u2013Agency (AEA) model as a recursive, hypothesis-generating process framework specifying conditions under which eco-affective distress may become more or less action-enabling. The model is not proposed as a linear stage model, a validated clinical protocol, or a therapeutic promise that anxiety can be converted into action. Acceptance reduces secondary struggle against legitimate climate emotions; representational externalization converts diffuse, sometimes preverbal or embodied distress into observable, communicable, and revisable form; responsibility contextualization reduces over-individualized self-blame without dissolving personal, collective, or institutional responsibility; and agency emerges when action experience updates self-efficacy, collective efficacy, hope, and social identity. Selected therapeutic traditions are used not as competing treatments or efficacy claims, but as conceptual exemplars of attentional reorientation, symbolic distancing, embodied perspective shifting, and efficacy-linked action selection. The model clarifies testable transformation pathways for future research and psychological support while avoiding the pathologization, depoliticization, or individualization of realistic climate concern.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fcogn.2026.1927324","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]],"date-time":"2026-09-29T04:37:02Z","timestamp":1790656622000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["From eco-affective narrowing to agency: acceptance, externalization, and efficacy in climate-related cognition"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"5","author":[{"given":"Paolo","family":"Raile","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty for Psychotherapy Science, Sigmund Freud University","place":["Vienna, Austria"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1275","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-2909.85.6.1275","article-title":"The classification of child psychopathology: a review and analysis of empirical efforts","volume":"85","author":"Achenbach","year":"1978","journal-title":"Psychol. Bull."},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2461","DOI":"10.3390\/ijerph19042461","article-title":"Identifying types of eco-anxiety, eco-guilt, eco-grief, and eco-coping in a climate-sensitive population: a qualitative study","volume":"19","author":"\u00c1goston","year":"2022","journal-title":"Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health"},{"key":"B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-2909.133.1.1","article-title":"Threat-related attentional bias in anxious and nonanxious individuals: a meta-analytic study","volume":"133","author":"Bar-Haim","year":"2007","journal-title":"Psychol. Bull."},{"key":"B4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"101562","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jenvp.2021.101562","article-title":"Collective responses to global challenges: the social psychology of pro-environmental action","volume":"74","author":"Barth","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. Environ. Psychol."},{"key":"B5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"9636","DOI":"10.3390\/ijerph18189636","article-title":"A scoping review of interventions for the treatment of eco-anxiety","volume":"18","author":"Baudon","year":"2021","journal-title":"Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health"},{"key":"B6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"102061","DOI":"10.1016\/j.gloenvcha.2020.102061","article-title":"When worry about climate change leads to climate action: how values, worry and personal responsibility relate to various climate actions","volume":"62","author":"Bouman","year":"2020","journal-title":"Glob. Environ. Change"},{"key":"B7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1177\/0022167821993243","article-title":"From climate anxiety to climate action: an existential perspective on climate change concerns within psychotherapy","author":"Budziszewska","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. Humanist. Psychol."},{"key":"B8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"211","DOI":"10.59249\/EARX2427","article-title":"Eco-emotions and psychoterratic syndromes: reshaping mental health assessment under climate change","volume":"96","author":"Cianconi","year":"2023","journal-title":"Yale J. Biol. Med."},{"key":"B9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"102263","DOI":"10.1016\/j.janxdis.2020.102263","article-title":"Climate anxiety: psychological responses to climate change","volume":"74","author":"Clayton","year":"2020","journal-title":"J. Anxiety Disord."},{"key":"B10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"101434","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jenvp.2020.101434","article-title":"Development and validation of a measure of climate change anxiety","volume":"69","author":"Clayton","year":"2020","journal-title":"J. Environ. Psychol."},{"key":"B11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"734","DOI":"10.3390\/ijerph18020734","article-title":"Ecological grief as a response to environmental change: a mental health risk or functional response?","volume":"18","author":"Comtesse","year":"2021","journal-title":"Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health"},{"key":"B12","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"102822","DOI":"10.1016\/j.janxdis.2023.102822","article-title":"When eco-anger (but not eco-anxiety nor eco-sadness) makes you change! A temporal network approach to the emotional experience of climate change","volume":"102","author":"Contreras","year":"2024","journal-title":"J. Anxiety Disord."},{"key":"B13","volume-title":"Handbook of Innovative Therapy, 2nd Edn.","author":"Corsini","year":"2001"},{"key":"B14","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"892","DOI":"10.1111\/lsi.12027","article-title":"Anxiety governance","volume":"38","author":"Cossman","year":"2013","journal-title":"Law Soc. Inq."},{"key":"B15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"275","DOI":"10.1038\/s41558-018-0092-2","article-title":"Ecological grief as a mental health response to climate change-related loss","volume":"8","author":"Cunsolo","year":"2018","journal-title":"Nat. Clim. Chang."},{"key":"B16","unstructured":"Dailianis\n              A. T.\n            \n          \n          Eco-anxiety: A scoping review towards a clinical conceptualisation and therapeutic approach [master's thesis]\n          \n          2020"},{"key":"B17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1002\/9781119462996","volume-title":"Evidence-Based Psychotherapy: The State of Science and Practice.","author":"David","year":"2018"},{"key":"B18","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"678397","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2021.678397","article-title":"From therapeutic factors to mechanisms of change in the creative arts therapies: a scoping review","volume":"12","author":"de Witte","year":"2021","journal-title":"Front. Psychol."},{"key":"B19","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"108","DOI":"10.3917\/cohe.242.0108","article-title":"La crainte de l'effondrement climatique. Explorations des angoisses \u00e9cologiques et leurs incidences sur la psych\u00e9 individuelle","volume":"242","author":"Desveaux","year":"2020","journal-title":"Le Coq-h\u00e9ron"},{"key":"B20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1002\/9781118775349","volume-title":"The Wiley handbook of Anxiety Disorders.","author":"Emmelkamp","year":"2014"},{"key":"B21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"102384","DOI":"10.1016\/j.aip.2025.102384","article-title":"Psychotherapy with the psychodrama approach: pilot study of the perceived effectiveness of psychodrama and the role reversal technique","volume":"96","author":"F\u00e1vero","year":"2025","journal-title":"Arts Psychother."},{"key":"B22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"245","DOI":"10.1037\/rev0000090","article-title":"A social identity model of pro-environmental action (SIMPEA)","volume":"125","author":"Fritsche","year":"2018","journal-title":"Psychol. Rev."},{"key":"B23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"101649","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jenvp.2021.101649","article-title":"How do I feel when I think about taking action? Hope and boredom, not anxiety and helplessness, predict intentions to take climate action","volume":"76","author":"Geiger","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. Environ. Psychol."},{"key":"B24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"28","DOI":"10.1186\/s13033-018-0210-6","article-title":"Climate change and mental health: risks, impacts and priority actions","volume":"12","author":"Hayes","year":"2018","journal-title":"Int. J. Ment. Health Syst."},{"key":"B25","volume-title":"Process-Based CBT: The Science and Core Clinical Competencies of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.","author":"Hayes","year":"2018"},{"key":"B26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"15","DOI":"10.1007\/s10584-022-03402-2","article-title":"On climate anxiety and the threat it may pose to daily life functioning and adaptation: a study among European and African French-speaking participants","volume":"173","author":"Heeren","year":"2022","journal-title":"Clim. Change"},{"key":"B27","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e863","DOI":"10.1016\/S2542-5196(21)00278-3","article-title":"Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey","volume":"5","author":"Hickman","year":"2021","journal-title":"Lancet Planet. Health"},{"key":"B28","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/9781118528563","author":"Hofmann","year":"2014","journal-title":"The Wiley Handbook of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy"},{"key":"B29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"101995","DOI":"10.1016\/j.aip.2023.101995","article-title":"Holding environment, mirroring, and transitional object: their roles in a writing group for adults with major mental illness","volume":"82","author":"Jaeger","year":"2023","journal-title":"Arts Psychother."},{"key":"B30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1823","DOI":"10.3390\/su12051823","article-title":"Threat and anxiety in the climate debate \u2013 an agent-based model to investigate climate scepticism and pro-environmental behaviour","volume":"12","author":"Kapeller","year":"2020","journal-title":"Sustainability"},{"key":"B31","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"81","DOI":"10.1353\/aim.2020.0004","article-title":"Is climate-related pre-traumatic stress syndrome a real condition?","volume":"77","author":"Kaplan","year":"2020","journal-title":"Am. Imago"},{"key":"B32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"405","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1752-0606.2006.tb01617.x","article-title":"Externalizing problems through art and writing: experience of process and helpfulness","volume":"32","author":"Keeling","year":"2006","journal-title":"J. Marital Fam. Ther."},{"key":"B33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"981814","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2022.981814","article-title":"Eco-anxiety: what it is and why it matters","volume":"13","author":"Kurth","year":"2022","journal-title":"Front. Psychol."},{"key":"B34","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"799","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev-psych-010213-115043","article-title":"Emotion and decision making","volume":"66","author":"Lerner","year":"2015","journal-title":"Annu. Rev. Psychol."},{"key":"B35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.4324\/9781315851853","volume-title":"Environmental Melancholia: Psychoanalytic Dimensions of Engagement.","author":"Lertzman","year":"2015"},{"key":"B36","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"267","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-2909.127.2.267","article-title":"Risk as feelings","volume":"127","author":"Loewenstein","year":"2001","journal-title":"Psychol. Bull."},{"key":"B37","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"469","DOI":"10.1016\/0022-1031(83)90023-9","article-title":"Protection motivation and self-efficacy: a revised theory of fear appeals and attitude change","volume":"19","author":"Maddux","year":"1983","journal-title":"J. Exp. Soc. Psychol."},{"key":"B38","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"53","DOI":"10.1016\/j.aip.2012.10.002","article-title":"Poetry therapy: an investigation of a multidimensional clinical model","volume":"40","author":"Mazza","year":"2013","journal-title":"Arts Psychother."},{"key":"B39","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"109","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jenvp.2015.10.003","article-title":"Personal experience and the \u2018psychological distance' of climate change: an integrative review","volume":"44","author":"McDonald","year":"2015","journal-title":"J. Environ. Psychol."},{"key":"B40","volume-title":"Essential Psychotherapies: Theory and Practice, 3rd Edn.","author":"Messer","year":"2011"},{"key":"B41","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9780511535871","author":"Moser","year":"2007","journal-title":"Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change"},{"key":"B42","first-page":"537","article-title":"Regulating worry, promoting hope: how do children, adolescents, and young adults cope with climate change?","volume":"7","author":"Ojala","year":"2012","journal-title":"Int. J. Environ. Sci. Educ."},{"key":"B43","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"7836","DOI":"10.3390\/su12197836","article-title":"Anxiety and the ecological crisis: an analysis of eco-anxiety and climate anxiety","volume":"12","author":"Pihkala","year":"2020","journal-title":"Sustainability"},{"key":"B44","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"738154","DOI":"10.3389\/fclim.2021.738154","article-title":"Toward a taxonomy of climate emotions","volume":"3","author":"Pihkala","year":"2022","journal-title":"Front. Clim."},{"key":"B45","volume-title":"Eco-Anxiety in Psychotherapiewissenschaft und -Praxis","author":"Raile","year":""},{"key":"B46","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1162616","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2023.1162616","article-title":"Multiple psychotherapeutic approaches and perspectives on eco-anxiety","volume":"14","author":"Raile","year":"","journal-title":"Front. Psychol."},{"key":"B47","volume-title":"Flowing Bridges, Quiet Waters: Japanese Psychotherapies, Morita and Naikan","author":"Reynolds","year":"1989"},{"key":"B48","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"657","DOI":"10.1038\/nrn2213","article-title":"Remembering the past to imagine the future: the prospective brain","volume":"8","author":"Schacter","year":"2007","journal-title":"Nat. Rev. Neurosci."},{"key":"B49","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"311","DOI":"10.1111\/j.0272-4332.2004.00433.x","article-title":"Risk as analysis and risk as feelings: some thoughts about affect, reason, risk, and rationality","volume":"24","author":"Slovic","year":"2004","journal-title":"Risk Anal."},{"key":"B50","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"100003","DOI":"10.1016\/j.joclim.2021.100003","article-title":"From anger to action: differential impacts of eco-anxiety, eco-depression, and eco-anger on climate action and wellbeing","volume":"1","author":"Stanley","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. Clim. Change Health"},{"key":"B51","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"440","DOI":"10.1037\/a0018963","article-title":"Construal-level theory of psychological distance","volume":"117","author":"Trope","year":"2010","journal-title":"Psychol. Rev."},{"key":"B52","volume-title":"Imagery Rescripting: Theory and Practice.","author":"van der Wijngaart","year":"2021"},{"key":"B53","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"101652","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jenvp.2021.101652","article-title":"Development and validation of a climate change perceptions scale","volume":"76","author":"van Valkengoed","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. Environ. Psychol."},{"key":"B54","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"101528","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jenvp.2020.101528","article-title":"On the nature of eco-anxiety: how constructive or unconstructive is habitual worry about global warming?","volume":"72","author":"Verplanken","year":"2020","journal-title":"J. Environ. Psychol."},{"key":"B55","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"101581","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jenvp.2021.101581","article-title":"What drives pro-environmental activism of young people? A survey study on the Fridays for future movement","volume":"74","author":"Wallis","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. Environ. Psychol."},{"key":"B56","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4419-9742-5","volume-title":"Climate Change and Human Well-Being: Global Challenges and Opportunities.","author":"Weissbecker","year":"2011"},{"key":"B57","author":"White","year":"1990","journal-title":"Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends"},{"key":"B58","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"20","DOI":"10.1007\/s10584-021-03234-6","article-title":"Anxiety and climate change: a validation of the climate anxiety scale in a German-speaking quota sample and an investigation of psychological correlates","volume":"168","author":"Wullenkord","year":"2021","journal-title":"Clim. Change"}],"container-title":["Frontiers in Cognition"],"original-title":[],"link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fcogn.2026.1927324\/full","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]],"date-time":"2026-09-29T04:37:36Z","timestamp":1790656656000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fcogn.2026.1927324\/full"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]]},"references-count":58,"alternative-id":["10.3389\/fcogn.2026.1927324"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fcogn.2026.1927324","relation":{},"ISSN":["2813-4532"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2813-4532","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]]},"article-number":"1927324"}}