New Michigan LLPC Guide to self care during the covid 19 pandemic
There have been a lot of new opportunities for work for therapists over the last 7 months. I’ve seen the severity of need and the amount of need increase two fold. In my private practice work I’ve received email after email from virtual platforms, asking, begging, offering bonuses to take on more clients. I’ve watched burn out begin in some of my colleagues and grow quickly to the point of no return. And who can blame them? So many other’s rely on us a lot to listen, to support and to provide what’s needed for them to build a steady path forward.
It’s not often that we, as therapists, are going through a lot of the same challenges as our clients. Our lives have also been uprooted and shaken - the pieces are still falling back into place. We’re ALL having to find options for childcare, healthcare, and workspace (often at a moments notice). For us, we’re doing that AND supporting handfuls of others who look to us to have the answers on how to do this best, or better, or hell, how to do it at all.
I’ve talked a lot with the limited licensed therapists that I supervise about self-care - about how this has always been an aspect of our work that needed to be front and center. Self-care during the COVID 19 pandemic, I think looks a little different, but is still vital! Self care over all isn’t about bubble baths, and making time for an activity that you enjoy - I see it more like setting yourself and your needs as a priority, and sometimes choosing yourself and your needs over everything else.
How can you support other people from a shaky foundation?
So Michigan counselors (LLPC’s, social workers, fully licensed folks - case managers ALL OF YOU) let’s remember a few things, take a breath, and put a few of them at the top of our daily to do lists.
Most likely, the work you’re doing with a lot of your clients is triggering to you in some way. We are now logging in, or sitting across from mirror images of our own lives. A lot of the challenges and stressors that are on our clients minds - are also running through our own. And while some other professions may be able to go to work as a distraction from the world around them - our career path puts us front and center to everything in COVID 19’s path. You most likely are hearing and seeing things that connect to your own life. More than ever, we need to take time to unpack that. Make time for yourself to wash off the day. Suggestion: I’ve been using a little note book to do 3 things right as the work day ends. First - I process thru my day and write a bit, pretty free flow. Who did I see, what did they say, how did I feel. Then I jot out a short To Do list for the next day - what’s important to remember, what needs to be sent/completed? Lastly, I invite my brain to focus on something I am grateful for. For me, this process often is purposeful - and It’s really challenging for me to come up with a topic. So I bought Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal that is full of questions and prompts to get me started.
Truly ask yourself, am I overloaded? Over the course of the last 7 months, I decided I had too much on my plate. Too many things that required significant energy and didn’t provide energy replenishment in the end. How much of what you’re doing right now offers a balance for you? We all have aspects of our lives that require so much - ask yourself - are those things in my life balanced with things that GIVE me joy/fulfillment/energy/purpose/laughter (fill in the blank). When we become lopsided, especially in a profession that at it’s core requires us to give and give, it lights the fire of burn out. Suggestion: Tough evaluation time. Turn those therapist skills around on yourself. Create a good fashioned pro’s and con’s list, with a twist. One side - things that give me energy, on the other - things that require energy. Honestly evaluate.
This is the DBT therapist in me - but - this is such a wonderful opportunity to be real with clients, and just be human. What’s going on in the world is hard. It’s hard and no one has all the answers. Suggestion: Find a comfortable way to be real with your clients about not having it together, or even better, not having all of the answers to put it all together. During a session with my own therapist, her daughter burst through her home office door because she couldn’t get a snack pack open and let me tell you, it was a tragedy. My therapist apologized, offered more time to finish my session, but honestly - not necessary! It was so….human. It was so real. Here we all are, doing the best we can to figure this out as we go along everyday.
Harnessing the power of no. Not sure about everyone else, but I’ve felt the pressure to say yes to just about everything since March. I know literally everyone is having a tough time, and I want to help - I want to be the one that is there for everyone, holds everyone up, cheer-leads, problem solves and listens. But. I can’t be. Plain and simple counselors - you cannot be there for everyone AND care for yourself. Suggestion: Say no. Ugh, I know…I know. But (and for a lot of us, we have to pull from a very distant memory for this one) remember the speech flight attendants give before a planes departure….your oxygen mask goes on FIRST. Before you can go around helping others pull theirs down, problem solve why isn’t not working, and come up with alternatives - you need to make sure that your own mask is on and oxygen is flowing properly. Whatever this means to you, do it, and do it often.
Lastly - sprinkle in the fun. Everything, so easily, can become about your clients, or how to make work, work, during these weird, virtual, months we’ve been living in and most likely will continue to live in for awhile. Suggestion: ….I need some. This is a tough one for me. Honestly, the thought that winter is right around the corner and I wont be able to be outside in the warm sunshine is daunting. So you tell me, with winter coming - how will you make fun a priority?
What I want you to take away from this post, is that it’s not just important for you to focus on self-care - it’s IMPERATIVE. We need you, ALL of you - and will more so in the coming months. I kind of see this as our moment, the need for better, more accessible mental health care is now undeniable. Keep yourself in fighting shape!
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