Mental health care providers are notoriously bad at caring for our own mental health. Do you identify as a perfectionist? Are you a high achiever? Perhaps you’ve been known to be a little self-sacrificing? On top of these personality traits that are common among those drawn to this field, we have dedicated our careers to caring for others. We hold people during their hardest experiences, sometimes while we are also experience distress, grief, and the burdens of daily life. I have experienced this and I have seen supervisees and mental health professionals in my practice go through this. We are humans in a caring profession and we’re bound to be impacted by the people we work with.
When left unchecked, vicarious trauma can lead to burnout and compassion fatigue
You’re a mental health professional, so you know the importance of a good self care routine. But sometimes the routines we create for ourselves stop working as well as they once did (how often have you seen that in your own practice?). If they become too routine, we become bored. Other times, it becomes more challenging to find the motivation to engage in an activity we once looked forward to doing.
Signs of burnout and compassion fatigue
- Feeling less connected to family and friends
- Reduced engagement in self care activities OR overindulgence to numb/avoid negative feelings/sensations
- Over or under eating
- Over or under sleeping
- Dreading work (do you get the “Sunday Scaries?”)
- Irritability with coworkers, clients, or friends/family
- Getting sick more often
- Calling out of work more often
- OR feeling like you can’t call out of work when you need to
- Looking at job opportunities to escape your current job rather than looking for an exciting new opportunity
- More negative self-talk
- Increased cynicism/feelings of helplessness and hopelessness at work
- Dissociation, including via substance use, increased social media/smart phone use, overeating, and/or oversleeping
- Hypervigilance
- Loss of sensitivity OR hypersensitivity to emotional material
- Loss of sense of self outside of work
Integrating individual therapy into your self care practice can help prevent burnout and compassion fatigue. I am a certified compassion fatigue professional and bring this knowledge into my work with mental health care workers. It’s hard to hold the space for others when you are struggling yourself.
Reach out to me to get started.