We are in the midst of a global pandemic that led to a huge increase in mental health difficulties. Many of my colleagues were ready to deal with COVID-19 increases in anxiety but were not prepared for forest fires, tech companies staying closed until July 2021, a political system that is about to combust, a failing economy and fear that life as we know it is falling apart. While many of us thrive in our call to help in a time of need, we often do not share that the very systems we work in create blocks and barriers to the very work we wish to do.
This secret is leading the best, the brightest, and the most empathic therapists to burn out or seek other modalities to support themselves so they can eventually meet your needs.
The Medical Model is No Longer Sustainable for Mental Health Treatment
Why are we burning out? In order to make our paychecks -we have to meet billable hours. That means we get paid hourly, often as an independent contractor with few benefits, to see clients. If we are working with the “worried well” or relatively higher functioning clients — seeing 5–6 back to back (or more) may not be a problem for some therapists. However, given global circumstances, clients are coming in with higher needs and it is zapping the energy of clinicians who not only have very little time to give to the clients in need, they have zero time for self-care.
Our system of mental health treatment in most countries is not a conscious model. It prioritizes diagnoses so that services can be paid for by insurance companies. It fits every human into a 50 minute box. It prescribes the treatment before a client even has the opportunity to talk about what they think is going on and what kind of support they need. In an effort to appear more “scientific” we have lost the humanity that was the hallmark of all helping professions. We seem to think we have it all figure out when, in reality, therapists are very disconnected from all the other healing professions and often do not have enough support themselves.
As I currently sit in Vancouver, Canada and have experienced a country with “better healthcare,” I’ve grown more concerned that therapists and highly sensitive clients do not get their needs met. An overly systematized, rather than an individualized, approach to mental health has led many therapists and their clients to the false conclusion that there is little support or adequate help available. It is a time for drastic change.
Why Does This Matter?
When people try therapy for the first time and do not feel like they have an active participant in the process or have bad experiences with a clinician who over pathologizes their concerns, they start looking elsewhere for support. For example, I had a friend text me in a rage after she took her elementary-school-age son for a traditional psychological assessment to determine if he had ADHD. She not only was annoyed at the ridiculous number of checklists about the same behaviors, she took her son and left when the clinician asked her, “How many times this week did you validate his good behavior.” She told me she couldn’t remember what day of the week it was let alone consciously count something that seems trivial in the middle of a pandemic. She wanted to know where a more “relational” and “conscious” professional was for her son and I honestly did not know where to send her.
We are in the midst of a revolution of wellness. More and more of my clients report that they would rather go to yoga, meditation, get a massage, do breathwork or work on their health through their diet than to show up to traditional talk therapy with someone who “sits and does nothing.” They also want connection and to have some joy in their life. We as a profession are not keeping up with the rapid changes that are catapulting our profession to face its own ego. Our clients are often asking for a comprehensive, holistic approach to their wellness which provides education and choice. Yet, we still think of ourselves as “experts” that seem to know the totality of the healing process yet struggle to take care of ourselves. The time has come for us to realize that as therapists, we are simply part of a wide array of healing professionals that provide a service to support others in their personal journeys. We may very well be the “expert” on healing the mind but we are not the experts in the totality of what it means to holistically heal the mind, body, and soul. It is, therefore, more likely than not that our clients intuitively know what they need to heal.
Empaths, Highly Sensitive Persons and Emotionally Centered People Need a Different Mental Health System
When I was younger, a referral to a therapist for childhood anxiety and probably trauma would have been helpful. Growing up outside of New York City meant that we had access to such options but there was a major stigma about taking your children to see a “shrink.” I was always a good student so the mentality was simply that I must be fine and didn’t need support. When the world came crashing down shortly after my 28th birthday, it became abundantly clear that I was not fine. Between the anxiety and trauma I experienced in childhood and the lack of tools to manage my symptoms, I did what we are all told to do — I went to talk therapy.
It took a very long time to find the “right” therapist. Two of my male therapists passed away within a couple of years of each other and I had to ask many people for recommendations. I finally found someone who used a different orientation, Compassion Focused Therapy, and highlighted my deficiency in self-compassion. That was finally a game-changer and a topic I enjoyed learning more about.
While compassion focused therapy was very useful for me and the 2 year relationship I had with my therapist was important, I quickly started to realize I needed to learn more to heal myself. I started yoga. I reluctantly started to meditate. I started to dance. I went to acupuncture. I went to a naturopath. Yet, when it was time to return to therapy a few years later to try to understand where I was on my journey at that time, I had a therapist diagnose me and tell me that the work I was doing with the “alternative” healing modalities was simply “resistance and avoidance to dealing with my problems.”
I fired that therapist and found an energy healer. Michelle changed my life. Then I found a tango instructor who was a reiki master and he helped me heal my broken heart and helped me find the joy in life again.
Healing is not always done in a traditional office setting.
For so many of us who are highly sensitive, highly empathic and should be healers, we are often on a spiritual journey and do not have a clue what is going on in the beginning. We experience awakening symptoms, the resurgence of psychic abilities, heightened sensitivities, and a real inability to manage anxiety. We are often diagnosed with anxiety, trauma and adrenal fatigue. If we are also women, we are usually also told we are crazy by our primary care doctors for worrying about unexplained symptoms that they label as “psychological” in nature. Our hormones are usually unbalanced and no one seems to notice.
As a psychologist and a woman who has walked the path, I’m here to tell you that you are not crazy. Seeking a consultation to help you decide how much of your anxiety is brain based, emotional or spiritual is not exactly easy to find. You are your own guru, healer, guide and teacher but it is like you have been dropped into the middle of the Hunger Games with zero preparation of where to start your battle. A true healer (and a therapist is supposed to be one) is simply there to help support you in discovering who you really are. Talk therapy really is simply an option and a tool for understanding what may be happening so YOU can decide the next steps in your journey.
Why Therapists Often Do Not Know How to Do the Self-Care they Need
You can glimpse from my story above that I didn’t learn a thing about being an empath or what type of self-care I needed while I was in graduate school — which puts clients at risk. I learned about self-care when my life fell apart and I was so very exhausted (just like most of you). Fortunately, I trusted my intuition through the years and ended up working with the right people who taught me different tips and tricks to manage my health and my energy. This was a toolbox built over time that included more than traditional talk therapy.
I also learned how toxic it was to my well-being to NOT have these tools while I was working with clients with significant mental health needs. We do not talk about this nearly enough.
Our mental health system will fall apart not because there are not enough providers but because our therapists are not learning the tools to manage their empathic tendencies and are not aware, that like my energy healer Michelle, they too are healers who need to take care of their minds and their bodies in order to serve their communities. Instead, we have spent too much time training clinicians as scientists who remain disconnected from their body and their heart. We are burning out the very people we will need to help support this great transition into an emotionally centered world.
Psychology should be leading this transition but we seem to be in the midst of a crisis with our own ego…
Why The Change is Happening Now
We have been in the midst of a global awakening over the past few years. And just like in my story above, the first symptom to appear is often high levels of anxiety. Except this anxiety cannot be fully treated with a pill or a diagnosis. It cannot be fully treated with a 6 session CBT protocol. This anxiety is the call of the soul for all of us to get back on our right life path. To do this, however, means healing trauma that is often relational in nature (which way more of us have than we care to admit). It is trauma that is stuck in our bodies, causing our nervous systems to spiral out of control and is making us chronically ill. The kicker of this scenario is that this is not a new story — we’ve known this was the case since the publication of the book Trauma and Recovery in 1992 (it was part of my trauma training in graduate school). Years later, The Body Keeps the Score, also highlighted the need for trauma treatment to move beyond traditional talk therapy — out of the mind and into the body.
Despite the call from our scientific research to focus more on the training of therapists with expertise in trauma and the mind-body connection, we still need more professionals trained in this style of treatment. Our professionals also need more training in yoga and meditation (beyond mindfulness skills) — not just to teach clients new skills but so their own energy remains in a high level place that provides healing for our clients. We need more training in how to just be with our clients through taking care of ourselves and not in the alphabet soup of interventions that we “prescribe” to people because we think we know best. Not every intervention works for every human being.
It is time for a more relational and conscious model of healing where we recognize that the energy and intuition of the clinician has equal importance to their intellectual training. A therapist who truly heals is able to connect and be with their clients. Sometimes this may be a connection on the cognitive level and other times it is a connection elsewhere. Intuition is the skill that helps a clinician support another human being and help them feel heard, safe and cared for.
What GEN Z is Teaching Us About the Future of Mental Health
Few will argue that GEN Z has entered our mental health system seeking support for higher levels of anxiety and depression. Yet, my recent experience has been that they are exhausted from talking about their anxiety. Many had wonderful CBT oriented treatment at a younger age and have come back during the pandemic reporting that the anxiety is worse and that what they have learned in the past is no longer working. They are highly motivated to learn and want to know how to calm down and relax.
Many of these teenagers are highly intuitive and highly sensitive. They are more likely to be drawn to creativity and the arts. They talk about energy and toxic relationships. They do not want to be around certain types of people. Their parents come in and immediately state that something is wrong with their child. Their parents think they have lost it but all I see an emotionally mature soul able to do self-care at a level we have yet to see. When you give these teens the option to talk about anxiety, to do meditation or to try yoga — they almost always request yoga or meditation. They simply want to do and learn a new skill that they can use at home that goes beyond “positive thinking.” They also get excited by crystals and the history of healing modalities that do not come out of traditional western medicine. They are also far more likely to ask about the future of psychedelics as part of the healing process.
GEN Z will be driving home the need for us to take the healing of the body as a tool to manage anxiety more seriously. They understand that in order to really dig deep into psychotherapy, they need to feel calm. And sometimes, talking can be more irritating than just sitting in silence.
Our mental health system needs to adjust and move past the expert model that has worked in the larger medical field. We need to reconnect to our roles as a healer and understand that as a therapist or a psychologist we are simply a witness to someone else’s journey. We have to be willing to put our ego to the side and admit that what we have learned in school may not be enough to help a new generation who seems to know pretty emphatically what they like and do not like or what it is they need in order to remain grounded and balanced in their mental health.
Change is coming and it will be beautiful if we begin to think about anxiety as wisdom that can be managed rather than a disorder that must be eradicated and fixed. Traditional talk therapy will always have its place to promote understanding but it is time for a collaborative effort amongst healing professionals to provide options so we can all make informed decisions about what works for us personally. It is in this choice that we can feel safe to heal. For some, this will be following a more scientific path and for others it may be more of a hybrid or alternative model. The important distinction being that the client has the choice as to which path they would like to explore — without judgement.
And for the burnt out mental health professionals, the opening to collaboration can also provide new learning opportunities that will shape the type of therapist you are meant to become. Collaboration is a win-win for client and therapist alike and I’m excited to see where the next generation of therapists lead our profession.
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. — Helen Keller
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Previously Published on Medium
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