Self Care in Work Habits

Iimg-article-are-you-too-stressed-out’m in my second year of practicum placement and I feel really burned out. What can I do to keep going in this career without constantly feeling depleted by my work with clients?

Your concern is a universal one for clinicians. We tend to enter this field with a predisposition for caregiving others and neglecting ourselves. The emotional demands of doing psychotherapy with highly distressed individuals and families are intense and most of us reach the limits of our previously developed coping strategies during our training. This is a good time to create new routines and habits that will serve you throughout your career.

In this blog, I will suggest some general strategies that will help to build your emotional reserves and detach in a healthy way from the intensity of clinical work. The next blog will address more specific ways to attend to your physical, mental and emotional health. I recommend that you choose one or two small steps to try out first, see if they are helpful, modify them if necessary, then build on those after you have had some success. You will probably find it hard in the beginning to give attention to yourself, as you go against longstanding patterns. Be gentle with your expectations and remember that you can always start again if you slip back into old habits.

It will be easier to sustain your physical and emotional energy if you build in breaks for yourself, both on a daily basis and throughout the training year. Look at your daily routine and schedule one or two breaks if you have a full day at your placement. Use your break to eat a meal or snack, take a walk, read or watch something unrelated to your work, or talk to a colleague. Turning your attention away from your work for a period of 15 minutes to an hour will enable you to be more engaged when you return to it. If you have classes and clinical work in the same day, give yourself some transition time in addition to your commute.

Another aspect of your routine to examine is the structure of your day. It is helpful to alternate more and less demanding tasks throughout the day. Consider taking an hour to work on paperwork or do some research into resources for a particular client to break up your client hours. If you have several particularly complex or challenging clients, schedule them on different days or at different times of the day so you have other work or less challenging clients between them.

Clinicians often have a very hard time taking a vacation from clinical work. Because of our pattern of caregiving, we often feel as though we must be available at all times. We don’t feel comfortable having someone else provide coverage. However, we cannot maintain our own equilibrium if we never take a break to restore ourselves. Throughout the training year, take vacation time as it is permitted at your agency and have a colleague provide coverage for your clients so you can be free of responsibility and preoccupation. It is tempting to check voice mail or email when you’re away from the office but you will benefit more from your time off if you fully detach. Keep in mind that taking a vacation means being away from the office and not having any client contact for at least a week. Taking short periods of a few long weekends will not allow you to truly rebuild your reserves and return feeling restored.

I hope you can use these tips for developing some work habits that counter your feelings of depletion. The next blog will continue on this topic, addressing specific ways to care for your physical, mental and emotional well-being. Please email me with comments, questions or suggestions for future blog topics.