There are many different definitions of the term "existential crisis" and two that I find useful that cover a lot of the ground considered in other definitions are: "...any psychological or moral crisis that causes an individual to ask fundamental questions about human existence." and "a period of anxiety and conflict about purpose and life’s meaning. Some psychologists focus on the existential crisis as a question of identity and whom a person wants to be. Others say it revolves around feelings of responsibility and commitment versus independence and freedom."

While it's very common to read that the increasing severity of climate change and losses in biodiversity have become existential crises, I can't find any discussions of how global and increasing declines in the well-being of nonhuman animals (animals) living on earth, in the air, and underwater can become, or already have become, existential crises. Indeed, research shows that human well-being and nonhuman well-being are tightly linked.1

In a long and very interesting series of conversations I've bounced this idea off of a number of different people and they agreed that it's about time to put global and increasing losses of animal-being being in the wild, in captivity, in our very homes, in entertainment, and in research into the broad arena of existential crises. Here, I'd like to put forth the idea that declines in animal well-being already are existential crises for many people who care for abused animals and their prevalence is likely to increase in coming years unless we do something now to put an end to the mistreatment of other animals in our diverse relationships and encounters with them.

Research has clearly shown that many people who work to save our magnificent planet and/or to make the world a better place for humans and........

© Psychology Today