The counselling profession tends to round up caring, empathetic, and self-sacrificing people. By definition, you are hard-wired to give. However, do you know when you need to take a break? Or are you fiercely heading towards therapist burnout?
This article will help you understand counselor burnout and how it relates to empathy and compassion fatigue. We will explain what causes this phenomenon and how to recognize the early signs. Finally, the article will reveal science-based self-care strategies to ensure you are on the top of your game to truly help others.
What Is Therapist Burnout?
The American Psychological Association defines burnout as “physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion accompanied by decreased motivation, lowered performance, and negative attitudes toward oneself and others”. Our article about burnout syndrome offers a vast range of valuable information about burnout in any profession. However, how does this apply to therapists? Counselling burnout happens when the very nature of your helping position exhausts your capacities to aid others. According to a recent review of 44 studies on the topic published after 2010, mental health professional burnout is very common. It happens when the therapist is overwhelmed, overstressed, and overworked. Gradually, they become demotivated and their well-being declines.
Research has revealed that the consequence of therapist burnout is clients’ decreasing engagement with the therapeutic process. As a result of the counselor’s burnout, clients do not benefit from therapy as they could and should.
We will speak about the causes of mental health worker burnout shortly. But first, let’s take a look at the relationship that exists between counselor burnout and compassion fatigue. Counseling Burnout, Empathy and Compassion Fatigue When you were considering a career as a counselor, your entire personality was probably leaning towards helping others. Your ability to empathize led you to a profession in mental health. Nonetheless, even individuals cut out for providing support in moments of deep personal crises could succumb to empathy and compassion fatigue. It leaves you drained out of any capacity to feel compassion for others. This is a risk faced by anyone who uses their emotions and hearts to perform their work — such as therapists.
Still, even though there are overlaps, these unwanted occurrences are not identical. Our article about compassion fatigue, as well as the one on empathy fatigue, will help you understand these phenomena, the signs and causes, and their relationship with burnout syndrome.
What Causes Therapist Burnout?
Therapist burnout is generally a result of maintaining high levels of performance under intensive stress and tension. Extreme and sustained exertion takes its toll. Therapists and counselors who do trauma work are particularly susceptible to mental health worker burnout. These professionals regularly witness the outcomes of the clients’ adverse experiences. Overburdening workload in such cases may easily lead to surpassing one’s limits to bear the secondary trauma.
A recent study demonstrated that younger age, having less work experience, and being overinvolved in client problems contribute to the occurrence of therapist burnout. Moreover, research suggested that autonomy and control over the workload and caseload decrease the risk of counseling burnout. Therefore, a lower level of job control (such as when you are working in agency-based settings) seems to be a part of what causes therapist burnout.
Counseling Burnout in the COVID-19 Era
The factors we discussed above became highly prevalent when the pandemic started. And the consequences became unequivocal. A study from 2012 spoke of between 21-61% of mental health practitioners who experienced signs of burnout. Nonetheless, a 2020 study reported that a whopping 78% of psychiatrists experienced therapist burnout.
It is hard not to notice that the times of such a wide-ranging crisis added more distress than the helping professionals could handle. At the same time, these counselor burnout statistics indicate that we need to speak more about how to engage in self-care. Read on to find out which actions you can take to prevent or alleviate mental health professional burnout symptoms.
How Do I Know If I’m Experiencing Counselor Burnout?
Even though you are trained at recognizing the signs of various psychological disturbances, therapist burnout might be creeping on you unnoticed. This is why it is important that you take the burnout test. It will help you determine not only if you are burnt out already — but also how close to reaching your limits you might be.
Here are some of the foundational symptoms of counselor burnout:
- According to a systematic review that comprised 29 papers, the most common dimension of burnout by applied psychologists was emotional exhaustion.
- You could notice negative feelings and perceptions about your clients or colleagues.
- Your sense of personal achievement is likely to diminish. You feel less motivated and less accomplished as a professional. Objectively, your efficacy is also likely to decline.
- You could be tempted to cancel appointments and feel relief when clients cancel. During the sessions, your mind wanders, and you find it harder and harder to maintain focus and show empathy.
- You may start experiencing depressive symptoms, anxiety, or a tendency to succumb to alcohol use or other unproductive behaviors.
Self-Care Strategies for Counseling Burnout
Psychotherapy is a demanding profession. It has a grinding trajectory and can leave therapists feeling lonely and isolated. You are focused on helping others. However, how well are you taking care of yourself? To prevent or ease therapist burnout, the response to the above question needs to be: “Very well!”
Here are some insightful ways for mental health practitioners to care for themselves for the good of their clients and themselves.
- Get enough sleep. Many therapists tend to think of sleep as wasted idle time. Nonetheless, research reveals that quality sleep will increase your resilience and a sense of accomplishment.
- Treat yourself to a massage. Empathizing during therapy triggers visceral reactions, which, over time, take a toll on our bodies. Findings suggest that therapist burnout can be prevented and alleviated by introducing massage therapy to your self-care routine.
- Exercise. An abundant knowledge base testifies to physical activity’s ability to promote mastery and self-efficacy, as well as to reduce physiological sensitivity to chronic stress.
- Seek support. Social support is vital in boosting your resilience to therapist burnout, whether it is from your friends and family or professional help.
- Take a break. Last but not least, a pause from chronic stress is sometimes essential. Take a vacation and recharge your batteries. According to research, the good news is that both short and longer vacations have the same positive effect on ameliorating the effect of burnout syndrome.
Put Your Oxygen Mask First
Do you think you could be having symptoms of counseling burnout? Is your ability to be there for your clients becoming suboptimal? Take the test and find out whether you are approaching therapist burnout.
Then, put the metaphorical oxygen mask on your face first. We understand that your whole being desired to help others overcome hard times in their lives. But, as in an airplane, unless you take care of your needs first, you won’t be able to assist anyone else. Engage in self-care and venture on to doing good in the world with strength and zest.
