Is your therapist okay? Have you ever wondered about this? When you go through anxiety, depression, ocd or any other mental disorder, your therapist stands by your side. They hear you out, they support you, they understand you and talk to you about all this. But this profession is not as easy as it looks; […]
Is your therapist okay?
Have you ever wondered about this?
When you go through anxiety, depression, ocd or any other mental disorder, your therapist stands by your side. They hear you out, they support you, they understand you and talk to you about all this.
But this profession is not as easy as it looks; giving therapy is not an easy task. It’s not just giving space to your client, or listening to them, or consoling them, it is way more than that. It’s understanding them, finding out their problem, making them face it, making them accept the right or wrong and so much more.
And in between this cycle of prioritising their client, a mental health professional might end up listing themselves at the end.
This profession is a one way street; when the care, understanding and other aspects just go to the client, nothing comes back, making the professional vulnerable to stress, burnouts, tiredness and much more. The mental health professionals have an idea that keeping themselves at priority would be unfair and researches have shown this to be true.
Further the researches highlight that mental health professionals have a lot of stressors around them. This can include issues with their reputation, their methods, client satisfaction and can even include client’s responses such as no development, no changes, suicidal ideation or anything else that makes the client vulnerable and these can have an effect on the professional. Many times the professionals don’t even realize that this is happening.
Not just stress, the professionals can also feel burnout and can have a diminished idea of self, get tired of their work and have a strain on their mental health as well.
But what does all this exactly do?
Why do we care if a therapist is stressed, or in a burnout stage?
Well, we should!
Not because they are a member of society or your therapist but simply because they are fellow human beings.
The stages of burnout and immense stress can affect their work, their relationship with the client, their physical health and their own mental health and eventually can have a huge effect on their practices.
There have been cases of students who have cried or even fainted in wards because they couldn’t handle the pressure of the trauma shared. There have been cases where therapists have been to therapists and cases where people have left the field altogether or switched their majors because it was too much to handle. But it doesn’t mean they gave up, they just ended up protecting themselves.
Being a mental health professional is not easy, the stress and trauma can affect the therapist, their work, their mind as well as their peers, family and others around them and it takes courage to be that person.
And sometimes this courage can cost them, because not every time the client will respond, there will be some who get better in 2 months and some who might take 6 to 7 months. There can be changes in approaches and changes in diagnosis and sometimes the prognosis can be wrong all together making it a dicey place to be, but they work supremely hard to keep you fine.
So the next time you see your therapist just drop a “how are you?”, they are not going to tell you but they will be happy.
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Writer: Nandhitha M
