Scary Science: How Science Fiction is an Effective Avenue to Explore Climate Change Through Trauma Theory and Anticipatory Trauma

Sawyer N. Unruh
Fri, 17 Apr 2026 09:15:00 PDT

Science Fiction (SF) offers its readers a means of confronting climate anxiety by transforming the creeping, yet daunting threat of climate change and natural disasters into an unfortunate but manageable reality. Drawing on trauma theory, this paper examines how SF engages with Anticipatory Trauma Reaction (ATR) and works to mitigate it. Theorized by Tanya Hopwood, ATR is a pre-trauma response characterized by stress and anxiety over potential catastrophe. It is especially relevant in an environmental context, as individuals grapple with the potential irreversibility of climate change and its detrimental effects on society. SF provides the necessary tools to immerse its readers in a world shaped by ecological collapse and to help them confront it. In this paper, I will analyze Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven as a case study to argue how SF can mediate the anxieties of climate-induced ATR and how collective memory and history allow characters and the audience to confront trauma and pre-trauma. Drawing on Cathy Caruth's trauma theory and Tanya Hopwood’s studies on ATR, I will contextualize how The Lathe of Heaven functions as a therapeutic tool, despite not being labeled as “climate fiction”. By exploring both individual and collective experience with trauma and memory, SF becomes a space for its audience to embrace the anticipation and redirect their anxiety. The abstract threats of large-scale destruction become more realistic and tangible threats, allowing for empowerment and control. SF is an avenue for future exploration, and irreversibility becomes a slight possibility, rather than a guarantee.