Yesterday, I sandwiched my own personal therapy directly between four of my own clients. In lieu of keeping up with a weekly blog, I was also stalling for creativity and inspiration for new topics. I suddenly realized that therapists were human too, and BOOM! The topic for this week’s blog was born.
I wanted to initially have this blog be a one-person show, but I realized that there are so many amazing therapist friends of mine who are in the thick of it with me. And so many of my friends struggle with very similar issues that I do when it comes to navigating the therapist/human fine line.I began asking my fellow therapist comrades about things that they struggled with once I decided on the topic of this week’s blog. I hope that I offer some helpful tips to other therapists out there who are feeling discouraged by their own humanity, and I am always happy to give the spotlight to other members within my fabulous community.
Work/Life Boundaries
Two therapist friends of mine had the same initial reaction when I asked them how to separate being a therapist and being human. They both said in different conversations that the need to balance work and personal life was very important! What does balancing work and personal life mean to us as clinicians? It can be interpreted in many different ways, but I think specifying what this means can really help us understand how to create a definitive day-to-day separation between being a therapist and not being a therapist.
1) Have a cognitive switch: Mine would be turning my lamp off at my desk when I finish my last session of the day. I have also heard of people tapping the top of their office doors when they leave, locking up their offices as a way to “leave it there”, and having non-therapist listening material to indulge in on the drive home. The point is to have an intentional way of turning it off.
2) Shut down conversations that feel like therapy: So often, our friends and acquaintances (who can’t fully empathize with the heaviness of the kind of work we do) want to have a non-paid therapy session. Some things I say to remind others that I am not at work would be, “Am I getting paid for this hour?”, “I’d really love to help with this issue, but I’m not at work right now,” “Do you talk about this with your own therapist?”, or “Can I help you next week find a therapist?”.
3) Engaging in activities UNRELATED to work: Because our jobs take up so much of our mental space, it is so incredibly easy to engage in therapy-related videos, movies, or books during our down time. But I implore any clinician reading this to have an intentional STOP on doing this. Our brains can only handle the same topic so much before they become burnt out on processing it. Some non-therapist activities I’ve done recently are brunch, reading autobiographies, and taking long baths after a long day.
Heaviness/Lightness Balance
Another essential topic that one of my fellow therapists mentioned is having a healthy balance between the heavy and the light. As mentioned earlier in this blog, our jobs have such a heavy component to them. We sit with feelings, emotions, secrets, systems, processes, cognitions, and all the other therapy-related phenomena that aren't necessarily “easy” to contain. This is why having light-hearted, easy, and funny material close to us during our down time is key.
Some of the “light” activities I can suggest are watching romantic comedies, listening to upbeat pop music, indulging in SNL skits on Youtube, watching your favorite stand-up comedy, and getting lost in reality TV shows (my current ones are RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills).
Lighter activities outside of movies, television, and music would be getting dinner and drinks with friends, going to a drag show or drag brunch, planning a trip with your friends or significant other(s), going off-roading, going to a sports game, or seeing your favorite band at a concert. The opportunities are ENDLESS on the light activities, but the sole purpose of these is to schedule time with the intention for your brain to not sit with the heavy.
Viewing Cancellations as a GIFT
A few weeks ago, I was processing with my own therapist the anxiety associated with the slowness of the summertime. Almost every therapist I know eventually hits a scheduling wall once late May rolls around, and the dreaded cancellations roll in! But my therapist framed cancellations as GIFTS. It absolutely blew my mind. This was so brilliant and eliminated the shame, anxiety, and stress associated with having several cancellations hit your inbox at one time. Our bodies were meant to have breaks. And if a client cancels on us last minute, we have the GIFT of freedom, relaxation, and down time.
Some helpful tips on what we can do with an unexpected hour of freedom when our clients cancel:
1) Going for a walk (when weather permits)
2) If it is your first client of the day, sleeping for an extra hour
3) Meditating and deep breathing
4) Playing with your animals if they are nearby
5) Reading your favorite book
6) Texting or calling a friend or loved one (if the conversation is light)
7) Watching your favorite TV show
8) Getting coffee from your favorite coffee shop
Scheduling Breaks Before Your Body Does It For You
As I write this section of the blog, I am suddenly remembering the quote “Your mind is writing checks that your body can’t cash.” As clinicians and as humans, it is imperative for us to plant the seeds of intention to schedule downtime. A client of mine who is also a business owner told me that they have to be very strict with themselves on booking their next plane ticket for their next vacation as soon as their most recent vacation is over. It brought up a very good point of how incredibly seductive of an idea it is for business owners to work themselves to the absolute bone without taking breaks. And that if we are not extremely mindful of our planned breaks, we can and will burn ourselves out.
It is a must that we as clinicians have to disconnect from the day-by-day hustle of being a therapist (and all that it entails) for an extended period of time. We need to give our brains a vacation from showing up for our clients so that we may show up for ourselves and our families. And scheduling breaks for ourselves ahead of time is extremely important. I cannot stress this enough as a therapist who has been licensed for five and a half years!
Further Suggestions of Humanizing A Therapist
1) Zoom in on morning and nightly rituals. Can they change?
2) Locate your nearest coffee shop to your office or work space.
3) If you drink, limit the amount of alcohol consumption during your work week.
4) Find a group of therapist friends to spend time with on a regular basis (i.e. monthly meet-ups)
5) Try to create a separation of a therapist being a part of your whole identity.
Therapists Who Helped Make This Blog Possible
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