Draft:Leslie Davenport

Leslie Davenport (born Leslie Dunn) is an American writer, teacher, speaker, psychotherapist, and consultant who’s recognized for her pioneering contributions to the mental health specializations climate psychology. Her work draws from many disciplines and traditions to explore the intersection of climate change, psychology, education, social justice, media, and policy, bringing an understanding of complex human behavior to environmental sustainability efforts. She works with individuals, communities, schools, and organizations to develop tools for building resiliency and leveraging the full range of our human capacities toward addressing the deep challenges of our times.

Early life

Born in Glendale, California to a North Ireland immigrant father in the dairy business and a mother from  Appalachian Tennessee, Davenport grew up in the San Fernando Valley with two siblings.  In her early 20s she moved to San Francisco, California to pursue a career in modern dance and completed her BA degree in Dance as a Performing Art in 1976 at San Franisco State University. In 1978 she earned a MA degree in Dance from Mills College in Oakland, California and joined the Mills Dance faculty upon graduating.

She also taught dance at Holy Names University in Oakland, California, University of San Francisco, and California State University-East Bay in Hayward, California. Davenport’s dance focus shifted from the performing arts to the mind-body connection, and she taught dance as a form of epistemological inquiry from 1983-86 and 1992-93 at the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality (founded by theologian Matthew Fox) and at the Department of Arts and Consciousness at John F Kennedy University in Orinda, California in 1986. Her interest in human nature influenced her decision to obtain an MS degree in Counseling Psychology in 1990 at Dominican University of California in San Rafael, California, and she became a licensed psychotherapist in 1992. From 1990-3, she was a core faculty member in the Transpersonal Psychology Department at John F Kennedy University.

In 1989, Davenport founded Marin General Hospital’s Humanities Program,  where she united the best of medicine with psychotherapy, mindfulness, guided imagery, and expressive arts to build integrative patient services programs. It eventually evolved into the Institute for Health & Healing at the California Pacific Medical Center. She worked at the Institute for 25 years developing clinical and creative programs with a public health orientation.  Her interdisciplinary approach for empowering patients to participate in their own health and healing in a community setting had a strong influence on her later theory and practice of climate psychology.

Climate Psychology Career

Davenport has a lifelong passion for ecology and sustainability, and she became acutely aware of the existential threats of climate change in the early 1990s. This led her to weave her training and involvement in the arts, mindfulness, behavioral neuroscience, and community mental health into an interdisciplinary model for addressing the psychosocial impacts of climate change, using her experience with healing in a clinical setting to devise innovative methods for healing on a planetary and systemic level. From 1994-6 she worked with the Marin County Disaster Response Team’s Psychological Support Services to provide psychological support at ground zero to people displaced by natural disasters. She was also influenced by her familiarity with indigenous perspectives acquired through the Pachamama Alliance in 2016 and policy advocacy from her service on the 350.org Clean Energy Solutions Committee in Marin County from 2014-17.

In 2017, her climate psychology guide for the mental health field – Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change: A Clinician’s Guide – was published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. As an early voice advocating for the essential role of psychology in confronting the climate crisis, Davenport has quickly evolved as a keynote speaker, advisor, author, and consultant.

Davenport’s approach is based on the understanding that climate change is part of a systemic polycrisis that also encompasses a variety of social justice issues. She believes that it’s critical to build a nuanced capacity to remain empathetically aware of the existential threat of social and environmental collapse and equip ourselves to move together through eco-anxiety, ecological grief, and dread. Cultivating climate-adapted psychological resiliency practices will help grow the capacity to together co-create a life-supporting future and change the broken systemic legacies that are the source of our painful eco-emotions.

Davenport understands that the predominant Western culture has developed grossly misaligned perceptions that view humans as severed from a primal attunement to our place among the natural elements that surround and sustain our communities, and that it’s this disconnection that’s led to an abstracted and extractive orientation. Her conviction aligns with the principles of deep ecology and ecopsychology. She views our internal landscapes (psyche, emotions, beliefs, etc.) as inextricably intertwined with our external landscapes, each constantly interacting with and influencing the other.

She has several publications through the American Psychological Association (APA) that have advanced the field, including a professional training video co-created with Wendy Greenspun, Working with Clients Experiencing Climate Distress. She also authored two landmark books for kids experiencing climate-triggered psychological distress published by Magination Press, the APA’s children’s book division: All The Feelings Under the Sun and What to Do When Climate Change Scares You. In 2022, she worked with Barbara Easterlin  to co-create the nation’s first Climate Psychology Certificate training program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where Davenport currently serves as the program and faculty lead.

Selected Works

Davenport, L. (2024) What to Do When Climate Change Scares You. Washington DC: Magination Press.

Staunton, T., O’Gorman, J., Hickman, C., & Anderson, J. (Eds.) (2024). Being a Therapist in a Time of Climate Breakdown. Chapter: “Transforming Our Inner and Outer Landscapes.” Oxfordshire: Routledge.

Davenport, L., & Greenspun, W. (2022) “Working with Clients Experiencing Climate Distress.” Washington DC: American Psychological Association Psychotherapy Video Series.

Davenport, L. (2021) All the Feelings Under the Sun. Washington DC: Magination Press.

Erb, M., Schmid, A. (2021) Integrative Rehabilitation Practice. Chapter: “Integrative Guided Imagery.” London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Davenport, L. (2019) “A New Path: The Role of Systemic Therapists in an Era of Environmental Crisis” Family Therapy Magazine, pp. 13-16.

Clayton, S., Manning, C. M., Krygsman, K., & Speiser, M. (2017). Reviewer of the guide “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance.” American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica: Washington, D.C.

Davenport, L. (2017) Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change: A Clinician’s Guide. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Davenport, L. (Ed.) (2016). Transformative Imagery: Cultivating the Imagination for Healing, Change, and Growth. Chapter: “Mindful Advocacy: Imagery for Engaged Wisdom.” London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

A. Zajonc, P. J. Palmer, & M. Scribmer (Eds.) (2010) The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal. Essay: “Bringing Conversation into the Essence of Teaching: Making Meaningful Connections.” Hoboken:  John Wiley and Sons.

Davenport, L. (2009). Healing and Transformation Through Self-Guided imagery. Berkeley: Celestial Arts.