Counselor burnout

Counselors are people too. At least, so I have heard. Over the last three years or so there has been an increase in the need for counseling without the subsequent increase in counselors. This has caused a greater than normal rate of counselor burnout due to the high needs in communities for supports.

I was reading an article in Counseling today ,a periodical for professional therapists, there was a definition of what burnout is. The multidimensional description of burn out is: high emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization, and feelings of low personal accomplishment (Maslach and Jackson, 1981).

The authors suggest that if this burnout is left untreated can cause the counselor to leave the field. This is bad news because according to the Health resources and services administration (HRSA) approximately 160 million Americans live in an area that has a shortage of mental health professionals. Due to these shortages the demand for counselors to take more clients and work longer hours is now the norm.this is an unhealthy environment for mental health professionals. The issues with counselors is that we tend to put ourselves last so our self care tends to fly right out that proverbial window.

There is of course a solution to this problem. Working with counselors as their provider I have learned a few things.

One is that counselors often are not very good at proper self care. Our profession is plagued with the ever changing expectations of systems needs that do not always take in to consideration that counseling is not like other professions. You can’t consider what we do in the same way you can someone working in a factory. The emotional and physical drain on our energy needs to be advocated for at all levels. Counselors often are afraid of losing their jobs due to the inability of keeping up with productivity without the necessary scrutiny for what is causing interruptions in productivity that are outside of the counselors control. The issue with mental health is that people often do not show up for session. The need for multiple meetings and long hours filling out cumbersome paperwork to adhere to best practice guidelines, insurance demands, ethical considerations and advocation for clients all fall outside of the productivity demands on counselor’s time. Having the understanding of what is actually affecting the counselors ability to feel accomplished in their occupation can help counselors self advocate a form of self care.

When a counselor has gotten to the point of reaching out for help they are often so far down the road of burn out that it has affected their personal and professional life to the extreme.

There is also a perception in our field that we have to be perfect and have no problems. Little space is made for regular human concerns within agencies.

To further exacerbate these issues, counselors generally have been neglectful of their own needs to accommodate others so long that the have forgotten or stopped caring for what makes them happy. This depersonalization wreaks havoc on the identity of the counselor.

In my work with counselors, we take a hard look at the multilayered issues and the multilayered individual of the counselor. We devise a plan that works to integrate the needs of the counselor and the work space they are in. At times it is necessary to recommend finding a new way to work in the profession.

If you are a counselor and you are finding yourself with cognitive fatigue, physical exhaustion, emotional regulation without a specific cause you may be experiencing burn out. Please reach out for help. We need you to get better so you can get back to doing the work you love.

Many blessings

Karen