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SELF-CARE WHILE WORKING AS A COUNSELLOR AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MAINTAINING ENERGY LEVELS

Writer's picture: Dafiny Alves Dafiny Alves





It was 2014, the year I hit rock bottom. Things were really bad in 2013, but they got much worse in 2014. I moved to the UK in 2010, and it took me a few years to get my documents sorted. While doing that, I was stuck in a financial, social, and emotional limbo. To cope, I did what I had done in the past and searched for a higher power and a saviour to save me; I reached out to a Brazilian church, where, for the first time in my life, I heard about counselling skills. In 2015, I applied for a Counselling Skills level 2 qualification. I wanted to give back and help others struggling like me. The course also set the changes within myself in motion, leading me to part ways with the church. After level 2 came level 3 and then level 4, and here I am in 2024, working full-time as a counsellor and clinical supervisor.

 

 

Throughout my life, I came across this idea that if “You help others when you are hurting, that is when the healing begins.” Some believe God will cure you, or perhaps because when faced with others' adversity, we often feel embarrassed of our problems; it is not uncommon to think that everyone else out there has much more significant problems than us, and it is when social pressure can take a toll on one’s emotional pain by numbing it while we put others needs in front of our own if this rings a bell, welcome to the caring profession! The profession where many of us have always looked after others or put other people's needs before our own.

 

  For me, it all started with wanting to focus on helping others when I was probably burnout and depressed. Luckily for me and the people I care for, it took me three years to start seeing clients while under supervision and personal therapy. As a South American woman raised in the 1980s, I was raised and conditioned to put other people's needs in front of my own, to work all the time, to take few holidays a year or none and to believe that mental energy is infinite - it has to be or how can we work all the time?! Well, since starting my counselling journey, I learnt that my physical and mental energy are both very much finite, and I needed to have things in place (self-care) to replenish my energy to avoid burnout and compassion fatigue. Especially because, in my usual week, most of my interactions with other human beings are with people under my care, which can be quite isolating and a drain on my energy levels.

 

 

 Last year, I went to this Wellbeing Conference with a charity where I work as a supervisor. There were about twenty-five counsellors on the weekend, and Michelle Moore was invited to give us a talk about Leadership. In the middle of the talk, she asked those who put other people’s needs in front of them to raise their hands, and suddenly, everyone in the room had their hands raised; I was the only one who had not put my hand up, that moment made me think about how we may not be educating trainees about the risks for ourselves and our clients regarding the counsellor self-care please note I don’t say this with judgment I believe this is a culture phenomenon that has impacted a generation, most of the clients and supervisees I’ve worked with from ages between early thirties to late forties were high achievers and hardworking people; when the culture around us dictates that you go big or go home and hardworking people will be rewarded, self-care sounds more like a luxury that we do once a while.

 

 When we put our needs first, we are not being selfish; we are caring and taking responsibility for our professional roles. Think about the last time you flowed somewhere, and the steward made the safety demonstration before taking off; what did they say about the oxygen mask? They say first put the mask on yourself before helping children and vulnerable adults. Why? Because if you pass out, you won’t be able to help anyone, which is the same as when you experience burnout. If we are going through burnout, we can’t help the very people we are meant to care for.

 

Anne Hellen Petersen, in her book Can’t Even, How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation, defines burnout as “Burnout is when you hit the wall – but instead of collapsing or taking a rest, you scale the wall and just keep going. It doesn’t happen because our to-do list gets long, or because we’re weak-willed, or because our kids won’t go to bed on time. Burnout arrives when every corner of our lives feels unstable, and we convince ourselves that working all the time is what will fix it.” (page vii) I really like this definition because it reflects the lives of most people I know.

 

 

I have also noticed that plenty of articles have been written about compassion fatigue in the caring profession, but relatively few are specific about burnout for counsellors. We cannot dismiss the fact that burnout can affect our client's work and our physical and mental health; it can also easily lead to compassion fatigue. If I am honest to the point of uncomfortable honesty, I started researching self-care, not just because I thought that perhaps something was missing in all the training I had done and self-care still seemed to me somewhat of a mystery, but out of fear, I was terrified of the idea of having a burnout and not being able to practice. In other words, not being able to work and make ends meet. 

 

When talking about self-care and the reality that, yes, counsellors can burnout! - It is fundamental to consider diversity and neurodiversity. Since the pandemic and the cost of living crises, how many of us can afford to slow down? Or consistently think about the number of clients they see weekly? We all must pay bills, some more than others. Still, ultimately, if you are in private practice, you know that you need to get to the end of the month, which is in itself stress-inducing, not knowing if you will have clients or not; yes, we are in the business of helping people, but it is a business, nonetheless.

 

 

 

How do I look after my well-being? What tips can I share?

 

 





What I have learnt in my self-care journey is that it is not one size fits all. I am a mixed-race, immigrant and neurodivergent woman with quite a few health issues who needs sunlight to live as much as I need air. Every day, I need to check in with myself and all the parts that make me who I am - what I need to look after myself at that moment. Sometimes, I find myself at the top of my wall, trying to push myself just a bit longer and feeling everything squeezing at me. That is when I need to stop and re-evaluate my options and remind myself that we always have choices, not always the ones we want, but we all have options.

 

 

I want to invite you to think about what self-care means to you. I often hear from clients and counsellors that they like to get a massage, get their nails done, and see friends and family. If that is you, how often do you do that? Can you recharge your energy levels while doing self-care?  I currently have to charge my three-year-old cell phone twice a day. If you were a cell phone, do you think the number of self-care activities you engage in is enough to recharge you and keep you going until the next recharge?

 If you have been hitting walls and climbing them to keep going, as Anne Helen mentions in her book, what can you do to slow down? Can you ask for help? Do you ever ask yourself: Can I take in this new client? How has this or that event in my life been affecting me? How am I feeling right now? What do I need? What can I let it go? What type of client do I want to work with? How many clients can I hold weekly? What kind of self-care works for me, considering my identity and needs? What is in my power right now?

 

 

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