Rethinking Eco-Emotions, Time, and Nature: Toward More Reflexive, Expansive, and Pluralist Mental Health Research Post-Modernity

Gan et al. (2025) Journal of Mental Health and Climate Change http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17488343 Rethinking Eco-Emotions, Time, and Nature: Toward More Reflexive, Expansive, And Pluralist Mental Health Research Post-Modernity Daniel RY Gan1, Martin Santamaria2 1. Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada 2. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada ABSTRACT Research on mental health and climate change is undergoing a paradigm shift, influenced by theorists who challenge conventional conceptions of “nature” and call for relational, situated approaches to ecological crises. These perspectives urge us to “stay with the trouble” and confront the complicities embedded in modernity’s dichotomies that shape our responses to climate and social disruptions. Against this backdrop, unfolding crises such as accelerating global warming, pandemic disruptions, and local ecological degradation highlight how narrowly we prioritize threats. How do cultural imaginaries of “nature” and “modernity” shape mental health experiences of intersecting crises? This paper turns to a Metro Vancouver urban forest, where the felling of thousands of trees infested by hemlock looper moths coincided with the public attention drawn to Chris Bailey, a long-term forest resident. His story, framed as harmonious coexistence with nature, was received with fascination, while parallel crises of precarious housing and the opioid epidemic nearby attracted scorn. This juxtaposition illustrates how cultural imaginaries valorize certain lives and landscapes while marginalizing others, reinforcing problematic binaries inherited from modernity. The paper argues for cultivating connections across species, peoples, and ecologies by unsettling entrenched notions of progress, purity, and distance. For researchers, this entails methodological and epistemological shifts: assuming interconnectedness rather than isolation, seeking knowledge across disciplines and traditions, and embracing cultural humility. Keywords: Nature–modernity dichotomy; Culture as medicine; Homelessness; Relational ecology; Decolonial knowledge systems PERSPECTIVE Open Access *Correspondence: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. 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Gan et al., 2025 Page 2 of 7 NARRATIVES OF ANOTHER WORLD? “[Chris] never wanted to burden the forest [...] his presence was always intended to be in harmony with nature — to appreciate it, study it, and use it as his muse for artistic expression.” – Allissa Thibault (2024) Mental health and climate change research is on the cusp of change. In the past decade, notable works by theorists and humanities scholars have caught on and impacted literature, philosophy, the arts, and sciences (Morton, 2009; Haraway, 2016; Kenney, 2017). Through close reading of Western literature, Morton (2009) pointed out that dominant conception of nature is fundamentally problematic and laden with often unexamined and questionable values. Unexamined conception of nature is “one thing that maintains an aesthetic distance between us and they, us and it, us and ‘over there’” (Morton, 2009, p. 204). Scholars cautioned to “stay with the trouble” (Haraway, 2016) and examine our problematic concept before “rush[ing] to join the nonhuman” (Morton, 2009, p. 204; cf. Haraway, 2003), which brings us to the Cthulucene – the interconnectedness of all species and our shared destinies – which requires response-abilities (Haraway, 2016; Kenney, 2017). Amid these scholarly churn and progress, life continued to play out with 1.1 degree warming in 2022 since pre-industrial decades, 0.4 degrees away from nullifying any political goal of keeping climate change to 1.5 degree (Armstrong McKay et al., 2022; Livingston & Rummukainen, 2020). At the current rate, 1.5 degrees warming will occur by 2027 (WMO, 2024) among other thresholds of climate cascades (Wunderling et al., 2024). While emissions reduced during initial periods of the COVID-19 pandemic (Usman et al., 2021), it was short-lived and climate-related deaths continued to surpass COVID-19related deaths in many regions (Khojasteh et al., 2022). The fact that surpassing numbers of climaterelated deaths had not loomed as large in our minds during COVID-19 points to the narrowness of our concerns globally. Evidence of complicities At the same time in the Pacific Northwest, similar surpassing numbers of yet another crisis stare us in the face (Norton & Kerr, 2020). A stone’s throw from its epicenter, another story played out compelling us to “stay with the trouble” and “deal with the idea of distance” (Morton, 2009, p. 204), to which this paper now turns. Since 2018, a well-loved urban forest comprising 600,000 trees in Metro Vancouver was infested by hemlock looper moths (Lambdina fiscellaria) which affected their structural integrity. As approximately 8,000 western hemlocks (Tsuga heterophylla), Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), and western redcedars (Thuja plicata) of 20cm diameters or smaller were felled for public safety in 2024 (City of Vancouver, 2024), the last of 7-10 forest residents who lived in the forest for a decade or longer attracted public attention (Thibault, 2024). Chris Bailey, 74, had until then lived in the urban forest for 34 years largely unnoticed by the public besides Vancouver Police’s mounted unit (Thibault, 2024). In those 34 years, Chris had probably lived through three rounds of hemlock looper moth infestations which occur every 15 years (City of Vancouver, 2024). Within an hour’s walk (4km) away is the epicentre of British Columbia’s (visible) opioid crisis, where members of the same Police may not be as kind to others who experience trauma and precarious housing and live in the same tents like Chris did (Perrin, 2020; Manson & Fast, 2023). Whereas the story of a man in nature attracted fascination, Gan et al., 2025 Page 3 of 7 the stories of many others, including older adults who experience precarious housing in the concrete jungle, continue to attract scorn or fear. What changed? For a brief moment, we posit, our curiosities were peppered with images of a man in harmony with nature – an erudite man, well-versed with brush strokes and the art of living in somewhat moderate but possibly harsh conditions, away from the grid but close enough to have passed us by. This imagery capitalizes on our dichotomous understanding of nature as opposed to modernity which traces back centuries (Eder, 1990), undisturbed by contemporary reexaminations of history and positionalities (Chadwick, 2021; Charles & Rah, 2019; Kim, 2024), at least not yet. This imagery also capitalizes on our innate desire to care and do good especially for the deserving – especially so people less deserving wouldn’t cost us when resources are scarce (Whelan, 2017). Surely we deserve to feel good in ways that are convenient? STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES These dichotomies of nature and modernity, of in and out, of deserving and undeserving have served the purposes of science and in-grouped society members since the Industrial Revolution (Eder, 1990; Roberts, 2004). With this logic we have pronounced people groups “uncultured” or “uneducated,” and have sought to acculturate or educate them, sometimes by force or more unconsciously by having them believe they are naturally inferior or pathologic so we can feel good being the ones helping by pathologizing (Hansen et al., 2014; Carel, 2023). That explains, perhaps, why we’d resist help even when we need it (Gan et al., 2025a). We are independent beings, attempting to master the chaos that is nature (Eder, 1990), and we have tools and gizmos and modern medicine and houses and AI to bring us a better tomorrow (Harari, 2016). Our ways have worked well for us – an us that does not include nature or the trees or moths (Forbes, 2001) or people that lived among them or in contraptions that look different from ours (Gan, 2020). We can do more with less and feel good doing good our way (Nature, 2024; Manson & Fast, 2023). At the same time, we can pause and reflect on our fascinations and conundrums now staring us in the face (Heiman, 2024; Miner, 2023; Pearson, 2024) toward even more meaningful changes. Where have we caught glimpses of what good looks like? How might we live in the grey towards better? Recalling the short history of homo sapiens, a species self-named Wise within the much longer history of earth (Harari, 2014), we have all been there living whole lives in nature with family not too long ago. To relish that idea and reject (besides Chris) others attempting to live that reality by choice or otherwise speaks to our broken relationship with notions of progress and time (Roberts, 2004), which we dichotomize from space understood only Cartesian-ly (Brentano & Smith, 2009). Time like space is not a resource to be measured and stewarded; it is a gift. Time is not a gift to one; it is a flow that preexist each of us. Time like progress is not linear; it is cyclical (Fuchs, 2018). While physics points us to the time-space continuum (Boi, 2004), we may crave time in nature like we do-good. What shall it cost us? WHERE TO GO FROM HERE: CULTIVATING CONNECTIONS Perhaps it could cost us the discomfort of looking outside the mirror after looking deeply into it (Perrin, 2020; Morton, 2009) so we may begin reconnecting toward relationship with nature, culture, and all peoples and beings (Eder, 1990). Martha Kenney (2017) summarized it well, Gan et al., 2025 Page 4 of 7 “As feminist science studies scholars like Alexis Shotwell (2016) and Max Liboiron (2016) point out, it’s no longer possible to have “clean hands” in a “permanently polluted world” (Liboiron, 2016: 104); purity politics are a no-go. Instead, it is about collectively learning the arts of living on a damaged planet (Tsing, 2015: 292); pushing against complacency, without losing sight of complexities, contradictions, and complicities that come with living in a time characterized by the uneven distribution of wealth and environmental violence.” (Kenney, 2017, p. 73, emphases added) These “uneven distribution of wealth and environmental violence” are not faraway “out there.” They are right where we are reading or writing this, in our case on the unceded territories of Indigenous peoples and First Nations in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, whose colonial institutions and (very slowly) decolonizing society we are part of. The “clean” power we use during surge periods in winter has removed people from their unceded lands and homes (Behn & Bakker, 2019; Lines, 2021). They call for acknowledging the complexities of modern living; for a fundamental rethinking our place in nature as with all ecology, and for learning from cultures and perspectives perhaps less tainted by the greed and fear that characterize early drivers of modernity (Pulcini, 2013; Eder, 1990; Forbes, 2001). They call for attending to a cat, stray or pet, like a kin; a child of all and every colour, like a kin; an unhoused person, whether erudite or shaggy, high on life or sobering, like a kin deserving the best medicine and love; a recovering settler, whether of colonial or refugee or diasporic descent, like a kin; an Indigenous person, whether with or without wealth and status, like a kin; a tree, whether native or transplanted, like a kin; the lands, whether still thriving or now flooded, like a kin. Until we can love the unloveliest among us while being honest with ourselves, the work remains. We do not need evermore trips faraway to spend time imbibing natural medicine (Kavenská & Simonová, 2015); ecology and the medicine that is culture and language are here even if it means looking into part of us that we may not like or reaching in for connections with groups, peoples, or cultures (including our own) that we may have overlooked while walking past. For the researchers, the interconnectedness of all beings and things call for new methods and ways of knowing. Instead of assuming nothing is connected and seeking to discover and test correlations between specific variables, one might assume that everything is connected and seek to model a variety of variables together within a theory of change to support action. Instead of assuming that we have had all concepts measured, one might assume that there are important variables yet unnamed among us, shaping our society-ecology and its preferences. Instead of reading and thinking only in ways that are comfortable to us, one might seek out new knowledge in adjacent disciplines, fields, languages or approaches. These are but possible starters. Instead of skimping over stories, sayings and etymologies, one might pay attention to what they mean or say about us, the perspectives and wisdom we might have lost amid modernity and notions of progress, and our place in our society-ecology and the broader world (Nussbaum, 1985; Modaff, 2019; Liberman, 2011). This journey of rediscovering the blind spots of modernity and modern systems, of unlearning the ways that might have constricted or displaced our bodies, visions and epidemiological imaginations (Deloria, 1944; Popay, 2003, Oakes et al., 2015), is challenging but may be easier in relationship (Hendry et al., 2025; Mignolo & Walsh, 2018; Sweet, 2018). Cultural humility is key (Bogle et al., 2021; Moon, 2023). Besides scientific (re)fabulation of post-modern society-ecology (Mabele et al., 2023; Yanou et al., 2023; Terry et al., 2024), we might attempt to see the world in technicolor panels, both big and small (Gan, 2022; Gan et al., 2025b; Moore & Gibbons, 1986). Gan et al., 2025 Page 5 of 7 “Come… Dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of [Werner] Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.” – Alan Moore (1986) in Watchmen, Chapter IX, p. 28 DECLARATIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors thank anonymous reviewer(s) for helpful suggestions. Much of these learnings and reflections took place on the unceded territories of the səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), kʷikʷəƛəm (Kwikwetlem), qicəy (Katzie), Sḵwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam) First Nations, in ceremonies with Dene Elder Joe Ratfat and Elder Yoshiko among others, through community life and collegial discussions at SFU and interstitial spaces here and elsewhere. FUNDING Not applicable. AVAILABILITY OF DATA AND MATERIALS Not applicable. ETHICS APPROVAL AND CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE Not applicable. CONSENT FOR PUBLICATION Not applicable. COMPETING INTERESTS The authors have no competing interests to declare. PUBLICATION DATES Received: 20 May 2025 Accepted: 13 October 2025 Published: 30 October 2025 REFERENCES Armstrong McKay, D. I., Staal, A., Abrams, J. F., Winkelmann, R., Sakschewski, B., Loriani, S., ... & Lenton, T. M. (2022). Exceeding 1.5 C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points. Science, 377(6611), eabn7950. 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