Since its inception in 2018, XR as a movement has rapidly expanded, reaching 79 countries across six continents within three years (Gardner et al., 2022). Although XR employs various tactics, its primary strategy is mass mobilization through nonviolent civil disobedience. This involves large-scale participation in law-breaking activities, such as occupying public spaces and blocking roads, to create disruption and draw attention to the climate crisis (Berglund & Schmidt, 2020). To foster a cohesive internal culture within a decentralized movement and support sustainable engagement, XR has institutionalized practices of emotional reflexivity under the concept of regenerative culture (see Sauerborn, 2022 and Westwell & Bunting, 2020 for an in-depth discussion). These practices help activists express and confront difficult emotions like hopelessness and despair, and through this processing cultivate motivation and hope grounded in shared values (Stuart, 2020).

After obtaining approval for the study from the Norwegian Social Science Data Services [435803], we employed a combination of purposive and convenience sampling methods. Current activists were recruited from XR Sweden through an advertisement posted in XR’s communication channel and by the first author attending a monthly meeting at one of XR’s local chapters. To achieve a more balanced representation of gender and age, two young women were purposefully approached during this meeting and invited to participate. For former activists, recruitment relied on snowball sampling from current activists. In total, 28 individuals initially expressed interest, with 26 ultimately participating. Based on previous comparable qualitative studies, we anticipated that this number would provide data with sufficient depth and breadth for a detailed and nuanced analysis, and recruitment was subsequently halted. Table 1 provides detailed demographic information on the final sample. On average, the current activists had been active for 2.5 years (SD = 1 year), whereas former activists had been involved for 1.4 years (SD = 5 months) before disengaging. The former activists had, on average, been inactive for 2.1 years (SD = 5 months). Participants were from three different cities, all were Swedish citizens, and all but one had Swedish as their native language.

Interviews were carried out either in-person or online during the winter and spring of 2022, with durations ranging from 45 to 80 minutes (mean length: 65 minutes). No compensation was provided. At the start of each interview, informed consent was obtained orally or in writing, adhering to the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association, 2024). The interviews were semi-structured, with open-ended questions that allowed for follow-up inquiries. A narrative approach was used (Anderson & Kirkpatrick, 2016), encouraging participants to share their experiences — including the background and process of joining XR, experiences during engagement, and, for former activists, the process of disengaging¹1

Specifically, this part consisted of questions pertaining to the research questions for a previous study (Eklöf et al., 2025), about barriers and facilitators for sustained engagement in climate activism. In that project, an inductive open coding was conducted on the entire dataset. This process highlighted aspects related to coping with eco-emotions that were irrelevant for the original research. Recognizing the potential of these themes to contribute to a concurrent academic discussion on eco-anxiety and coping strategies we proceeded with a second round of analysis, as outlined in this study.

We employed an inductive-deductive approach to thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; 2013; Byrne, 2022; Roberts et al., 2019) and by using Pihkala’s process model of eco-anxiety as a guiding theoretical framework (Pihkala, 2022). The deductive approach involved guiding our coding with established theories and frameworks on coping and eco-anxiety, focusing on addressing our research questions. Concurrently, the inductive approach allowed for an exploratory coding process, incorporating codes that diverged from or challenged our theoretical framework. Both descriptive and latent coding were employed: descriptive codes captured participants’ explicit statements, followed by latent, interpretative coding to connect these insights with theory. For example, the statement: ‘I had a really hard time letting go of responsibility; I had a very strong sense of guilt’ were first categorized under the descriptive sub-theme ‘Strong sense of responsibility and guilt,’ before being classified under the interpretative theme of ‘Factors making it difficult to balance action with distance and self-care’. The first author coded all interviews and developed the initial codebook. This codebook, along with the coding of two interview transcripts, was reviewed by the second author. This validation took the form of discussing and refining theme and coding definitions, leading to the division of two codes into four new codes (Braun & Clarke, 2019). The first author subsequently revisited interview segments where these codes were found to check if the new coding structure fit in with all interviews, which they did (the final codebook is provided in Table A1 in the Appendix). The results of the analysis are presented below, with translated quotes labeled with ‘A’ to denote active activists and ‘F’ for former activists, followed by a unique participant identifier.

Consistent with the principles of thematic analysis, we acknowledge the importance of researcher reflexivity throughout the qualitative research process (Braun & Clarke, 2013; Olmos-Vega et al., 2023). We recognize our positionalities as climate-concerned psychology researchers as central to our data interpretation, rather than viewing themes as passively ‘emerging’ from the dataset (Braun & Clarke, 2013). This positionality also informed our research focus; for instance, had we lived in regions more affected by climate disasters, we might have pursued different research questions. The interviewer chose not to actively conceal their support for the participants’ cause during the interviews. While this approach might be viewed as introducing potential bias within more positivist epistemologies, we believe it facilitated rapport and trust, thereby yielding richer data (Vestergren & Drury, 2020).

Both current and former activists talked about how XR provided a space where it was accepted to express and feel difficult emotions regarding the climate crisis, and how comforting this was due to experiences of lacking such acceptance outside of XR:

A3 commented on practices within XR of starting and ending each meeting with a check-in and check-out round, where everyone was encouraged to share a feeling or thought they were currently experiencing. To them, this was a new practice that they appreciated:

Moreover, participants described a relief in being part of a social context where others shared their concerns regarding the climate crisis and from having their eco-emotions validated and normalized by others: “It was just so comforting to be around others who share this fundamental perspective, where I don’t have to explain everything, and who have taken the information to their hearts and feel the same way as I do” (A13). A4 mentioned how this made them feel less ‘crazy’: “Being with a group of people who understand how important this is for me makes a huge difference; it prevents me from feeling...crazy”.

Although appreciated by many, some former activists also reported a sense of too much focus on emotions within XR: “XR is also very emotion-focused, which isn’t always good because people might then spend 15 minutes of a meeting talking about their feelings” (F1). This sentiment was echoed by F6, who emphasized their more instrumental motivations for being engaged in XR:

Former activists, who spoke positively about the collective emotional focus in XR, described experiencing a lack of social validation of their eco-emotions after leaving. They spoke about how they, after having left XR, had shifted towards states of avoidance. For example, F5 stated: “It felt like my anxiety was true. And now I’ve kind of returned to the status quo, like everyone else, and I can’t confront the truth as it is.” F11 linked this to no longer receiving social validation for their concerns: “when I was in XR, and there were others around me who kind of affirmed that it was reasonable to care and be worried. Now it’s more like I’ve cut off how I feel.”

Overall, participants’ accounts of the relief in entering a social context that allowed for grieving and experiencing difficult emotions and the fact that this was new to many illustrate how social context may enable individuals’ access to new coping responses. The need for such spaces is further highlighted by former activists’ experiences of feeling ‘cut-off’ from their eco-emotions after leaving XR. However, the variation among participants in the perceived need for collective emotional engagement highlights how preferences for coping strategies can differ between people. This may be important to keep in mind in collaborative groups as resistance can arise when it is perceived as irrelevant for instrumental goals. Indeed, in this sample, disagreements regarding what should be prioritized and doubts about the efficacy of XR were reported as reasons for leaving XR (among burnout and social friction, further discussed in Eklöf et al. (2025).

Beyond collective grieving and emotional engagement, taking action was also discussed as a coping mechanism, a theme explored in the next section.

Participants highlighted several ways in which taking action served as a coping mechanism. For some it reduced their anxiety (“My anxiety was a driving force for me to join, and then it faded over time. Being engaged helped a lot” — F5), reduced feelings of guilt (“You can look at yourself in the mirror now. It feels like I’ve seen something I can’t ignore” — A3) and provided a sense of meaning (“Looking back, I think about how great things were during that time. I’ve never felt such a strong sense of meaning, for anything, ever” — F11). Participants described various ways in which acting in a group, rather than individually, offered additional coping benefits:

Acting with others and thereby gaining a sense of belonging and community provided positive buffers against concurrent eco-anxiety: “My engagement has been quite anxiety driven. But…like, the hope, community, and sense of belonging have also been significant positive consequences of my engagement.” (F7) For many, the community added to the sense of meaningfulness, as expressed by A7: “Fighting for what you’ve decided is the most important cause…together with others, it feels so much more...tangibly meaningful, you know”.

However, former activists’ perspectives on XR and their reasons for leaving provide insights into when action in the form of activism may fail as a coping mechanism. Firstly, a number of activists left due to exhaustion, which is discussed further in Theme 3. Secondly, some former activists described how their involvement in XR felt increasingly demotivating and less meaningful as they began to face internal conflicts. F12 stated that: “There were conflicts, and eventually, I lost motivation and trust in the entire project,” which was echoed by F13: “People started to disagree about stuff more and more, and because of that, it became less fun and lost its importance for me.” F7 connected loss of motivation to losing access to their social context due to the corona-pandemic:

Talking about the pandemic, F8 similarly expressed that: “Just seeing other people faces on the screen and not having access to the group any longer, it didn’t feel meaningful at all”.

Overall, this theme illustrates how social dynamics within activism - either feeling a sense of community or experiencing conflict — affected the coping potential of collective action. XR provided a means to cope through activism, reducing anxiety and guilt while offering community and meaning. When social friction occurred, or when individuals lost access to their working group, activism in XR felt less effective and meaningful, triggering some to disengage and transition away from action-focused coping in the form of activism. The findings suggest that perceiving engagement as meaningful, either socially or instrumentally, may be important for collective action to serve as a coping strategy.

Although XR is an activist group focused on taking action for the climate crisis, participants spoke about a culture within XR that also promoted expressing one’s need for a break and a high acceptance for coming and going:

Despite the reminders and awareness of the pressures of activism, some former activists left precisely because of burnout and a need of more distancing and self-care. F8 stated that: “I was very active in XR to the point that I nearly burned myself out. [...] I had to prioritize my own health and recovery, and therefore I had to leave”. This individual, like others who dropped out due to burnout, had transitioned into a phase of primarily distancing and self-care. Some of these stated that this would hopefully not last forever, and that they wanted to get back into activism as they felt more energized again. Dropouts also discussed eco-emotions and aspects of personality that made it difficult to achieve balance between activism and self-care. F4 mentioned traits of having a strong sense of duty and responsibility: “I’ve probably struggled a lot with this sense of duty [...] I feel like I want to do so much, and I have quite a strong sense of responsibility”. This was echoed by F8, adding feelings of guilt: “I had a really hard time letting go of responsibility; I had a very strong sense of guilt [...] Yeah, it was almost a bit of a martyr complex, I think”. F6 and F9 both discussed perfectionistic traits and ‘all or nothing’-personalities. F9 expressed: “I’m a bit of a perfectionist [...] I have a bad habit of being a little all over the place; as a person, I’m like: What’s happening over there? I want to be involved in everything.” F6 stated: “I really immersed myself in the climate movement, as a full-time commitment [...] I’m not very good at doing things part-time; I tend to go all-in on one thing. So let’s see, I’ll try to engage in climate activism part-time, but we’ll see how that goes”.

In summary, our analysis suggests that social norms within XR encouraged participants to recognize the importance of taking breaks and distancing themselves, thus facilitating a balance between action and healthy self-care. However, these norms were insufficient to counterbalance strong eco-emotions of guilt and responsibility, as well as certain personality traits, which contributed to an overemphasis on action. Over time, this paved the way for exhaustion and ultimately forced participants to abandon this type of coping strategy - at least temporarily.

As an explorative qualitative study with a limited number of participants from a specific activist group, the generalizability of the present results is limited. The sample was drawn from a WEIRD population (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), and compared to countries like Germany, France and UK (Marandi, 2024) climate activists in Sweden have faced relatively mild legal consequences for civil disobedience. It has also so far been less affected by climate-related natural disasters. These factors may interact with individuals’ coping needs and influence their decision to engage in action-focused coping in the form of activism and may therefore limit transferability to differing contexts. More research is needed in settings where people face more immediate climate impacts or intersecting injustices, with previous research indicating that eco-emotions and barriers to collective action may differ significantly (Kleres & Wettergren, 2017; Ogunbode et al., 2022). However, given the limited literature on coping with eco-emotions, this study aimed to provide exploratory data that may inform future investigations. This could include in-depth qualitative studies delving deeper into specific processes, and quantitative research with larger, more diverse samples to validate these findings in different contexts. Another limitation of the study is the potential for self-selection bias and a potential overrepresentation of individuals who felt particularly emotionally invested in their activism or disengagement process.

Overall, this study illustrates the interplay between social contexts, individual factors, and coping strategies in navigating difficult eco-emotions. We found that activism within XR not only offered coping through Action but also provided a social context that supported the use of the other coping strategies emotional engagement, self-care and necessary amounts of distancing. These findings are likely influenced by specific organizational practices within XR — such as meeting check-ins and active reminders that encourage sustainable engagement — which limits the transferability to other climate action groups that do not have these practices. Nevertheless, this paper contributes to the discussion on coping by illustrating that coping does not need to be an individual responsibility centered on self-regulating difficult eco-emotions but can be supported collectively. For individuals experiencing difficult eco-emotions and practitioners working in this area, these results are relevant as they highlight several ways in which collective engagement can support adaptive coping with eco-anxiety. However, individual factors, such as personality traits, needs and preferences for different coping strategies, also interacted with social context. These findings have implications for organizers and collaborative groups, raising the question of how best to support and balance diverse coping strategies and individual needs. While no straightforward answer exists, acknowledging the complexity of these dynamics is an essential first step. Aligning with what Pihkala (2022) argues, fostering awareness of different coping strategies and the capacity to consciously oscillate between them is critical.

Asking participants about past experiences comes with risks for post hoc constructions and rationalizations. However, this methodology offers initial ideas that could be further explored in longitudinal studies. Our analysis has focused on the individual, the group, and their interactions. Future research could examine factors at the societal and cultural levels, as well as the influence of the current political climate.