Therapy for Therapists & Helping Professionals

One of Dr. Lauren’s areas of speciality is working with therapists and helping professionals. Dr. Lauren has worked with many registered psychologists, provisional psychologists, counsellors, counselling psychology graduate students, social workers, registered nurses, psychiatric nurses, occupational therapists, and more.

Do the following traits describe you? A sensitive temperament, the desire to meet the needs of others, and high personal standards. Research has demonstrated that those drawn to helping professions often share commonalities like these. While such traits may contribute to high empathy for our clients, they have also been shown to increase the risk of maladaptive coping mechanisms (like overworking, self-sacrifice, social withdrawal/isolation) and associated psychological distress (like burnout, emotional exhaustion, and mental illness symptoms) among therapists. As a group, research has demonstrated that therapists are prone to underestimate their own vulnerability and need for self-care. As stated by Vallianatou and Mirović (2020), we feel guilty when we “give too little” and feel exhausted when we “give too much”. 

So... while there are commonalities that attract people to a career in therapy, these are NOT necessarily the traits that make us feel successful/confident OR that make us stay! Remaining in the field long-term (hopefully with some degree of life and career satisfaction) doesn’t happen by fluke or happenstance. Rather, investment in your own wellness - both personal and professional - becomes essential to do the highly cognitive and emotional work of a therapist while concurrently maintaining quality of life outside of the office. 

Like all mere mortals, sometimes therapists and helping professionals need help with “the personal stuff” (e.g. family of origin issues, childhood trauma/neglect experiences, relationship issues, life transitions); having adequate support and a space to process the impactful experiences of our personal lives allows us to remain effective in doing “the work” with our own clients. Additionally, therapists often need support with the unique professional experiences of being a therapist (e.g. navigating career decisions, maintaining wellness concurrent to training/registration demands, preventing compassion fatigue/burnout). And then… there’s the cross-over of the personal AND professional. As therapists, we know our upbringing, beliefs, worldviews, and personal experiences affect our behaviors and decision making; our career navigation and development is not impervious to these influences. Understanding how our “personal stuff” is coming to bear on the professional challenges we face allows for new awareness… which leads to the possibility of new (hopefully more adaptive) patterns of behavior to emerge.  Dr. Lauren has provided current and aspiring therapists with support in both realms – the personal and the professional – and believes that success in one realm supports success in the other.