Monthly Archives: March 2017

Nonprofit News: Self-care for caregivers

By “Doc Warren” Corson III March 20, 2017

The field of counseling is one that offers great rewards. We get to see people go from their worst to their best. We get to be a part of the change that our clients are seeking.

Even so, the hours and hours we spend listening to the pain of others can take its toll. That raises an important question: While you invest so much in “saving” others, are you neglecting yourself? If so, you, like many of us in this profession, could be in danger of compassion fatigue or burnout.

Understanding compassion fatigue and burnout

Working as a counselor can weigh on you. You may find that you are having more difficulty being empathic in situations in which it once came naturally to you.

And although this compassion fatigue may start at your job, it can bleed over into your most intimate relationships. You may even find yourself feeling that you cannot possibly give anything else emotionally to others.

Among the signs of compassion fatigue are:

Excessive blaming
Bottled-up emotions
Isolating from others
Substance abuse
Compulsive behaviors
Poor self-care
Legal problems
Apathy
Feeling mentally and physically tired
Feeling preoccupied
Living in denial about problems
Difficulty concentrating

Burnout is closely related to compassion fatigue, but in extreme cases it can have more serious impacts on a person’s physical and mental health. Some of the signs of burnout include:

Chronic fatigue
A quick trigger to feel angry or suspicious
Susceptibility to illness
Forgetfulness
Insomnia
Loss of appetite
Anxiety
Depression

Burnout does not just happen overnight. Instead, there are stages and patterns that can help you to identify the issues and assist you in addressing them. Although having a great deal of enthusiasm for a project is considered positive and can often lead to a wealth of progress, look for signs of stagnation, frustration or apathy that may follow. Each is a sign of trouble.

Stages of burnout:

Enthusiasm
Stagnation
Frustration
Apathy

Prevention

Prevention is vital if one wants to keep working at optimum levels. Look at the list of practical ways to find balance, recharge and stay focused. Be prepared to think outside of “normal therapist behaviors” and identify those things that help you remain focused and energetic. Consider hobbies and activities that you once enjoyed but perhaps stepped away from because of graduate studies or other life-related obstacles. Embrace what you once enjoyed, especially those things that are far removed from the helping professions.

As for me, I re-embraced classic car restoration and time spent in nature, while adding classic farm tractor collecting (among other hobbies). So, go see that play or musical, get your hands dirty, listen to loud music or take part in other events. You cannot stay “on” all the time and still be effective as a counselor.

Here are some tips on prevention of compassion fatigue and burnout for helping professionals:

Get educated on signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue and burnout
Practice self-care
Set emotional boundaries
Engage in outside hobbies
Cultivate healthy friendships outside of work
Keep a journal
Boost your resiliency
Use positive coping strategies
Identify workplace strategies
Seek personal therapy

We are involved in one of the most emotionally draining professions that exist. You are here because you want to help people make a change and sustain that change. So give yourself the ongoing maintenance that your body and mind require. Find the answer that works best for you and follow through. We have too many people depending on us. We owe it to them, but, most importantly, we owe it to ourselves. Let’s do this.

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Dr. Warren Corson III

“Doc Warren” Corson III is a counselor, educator, writer and the founder, developer, and clinical and executive director of Community Counseling Centers of Central CT Inc. (www.docwarren.org) and Pillwillop Therapeutic Farm (www.pillwillop.org). Contact him at docwarren@docwarren.org. Additional resources related to nonprofit design, documentation and related information can be found at docwarren.org/supervisionservices/resourcesforclinicians.html.

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

Pettitt to counselors: What are we doing to carve out unity?

By Jonathan Rollins March 18, 2017

At Saturday’s keynote session at the ACA 2017 Conference & Expo in San Francisco, Jessica Pettitt was introduced as someone who “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.”

Jessica Pettitt gives the keynote address at the ACA 2017 Conference & Expo in San Francisco on March 18. (Photo by Paul Sakuma Photography)

Then, shortly after taking the stage, she told the assembled crowd that she has created a career out of speaking about unspeakable topics.

Given these early warnings, the audience could have been excused for wondering what was in store for them. But Pettitt quickly won over the more than 1,500 counselors in attendance with her humorous message that focused in part on accepting ourselves (foibles and all) and others — no matter how much their habits or views might frustrate us.

Pettitt, who has been doing diversity work for 20 years, said that a common theme she encounters is people asking themselves why they are not “enough.” At the same time, she said, we tend to want to change the people around us who frustrate us.

“But we are responsible for being frustrated and feeling divisive,” Pettitt said. “There is a reason why we feel the way we do.”

She explained that each person tends to react to the situations that he or she encounters in one of three ways: with their head, with their heart or with action. “All three of these variables are necessary, needed and in us,” Pettitt said. “The toolset you have is exactly what you need to survive.”

The people who frustrate us most are the people who follow different “patterns” than we do when it comes to these head, heart and action archetypes, Pettitt said. But our frustration comes in our desire to change them, she added.

“I can’t make anybody do anything. If we want to be really honest, I can’t really make myself do

(Photo by Paul Sakuma Photography)

anything all of the time,” Pettitt said. “Why on earth do I think I have some magical power to make someone else be different?”

What is healthier is to view the person as being “differently right” and to recognize that “there’s some good happening in there.”

Taking this view is particularly important in this time of divisiveness in our nation, Pettitt suggested. She challenged the counselors in attendance to look inward and ask themselves if they are promoting a true view of diversity, even when it conflicts with their personal views and beliefs. She pointed out that somewhere in the keynote session were individuals who had voted for Donald Trump, which many counselors cannot seem to comprehend.

“This whole conference is about unity. But have we done something to carve that out?” Pettitt asked the crowd. “We’re so polarized [as a nation] right now. What are you doing to make that not true?”

Rather than focusing our efforts on changing other people, we need to take notice of and take responsibility for our own patterns, she said. This also involves identifying the crucible moments of our lives and our incongruities.

But above all, she said, it means recognizing that “I may not be perfect, but I’m certainly good enough. Right now, I’m the best tool that I’ve got, [so] do the best you can with what you’ve got some of the time. … With each connection, listen, hold space for feedback and leave room for edits.”

Pettitt also challenged counselors in their interactions with clients. “Your job is to help them see that they are enough,” she said. “Sometimes we want to be fixers, but what they really need is a listener. … You can listen to someone without already knowing all the answers.”

(Photo by Paul Sakuma Photography)

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Jonathan Rollins is the editor-in-chief of Counseling Today. Contact him at jrollins@counseling.org.

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For more photos from the conference, see bit.ly/1MOAysM

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

Yalom urges ACA attendees to hold fast to self-care and the therapeutic alliance

By Laurie Meyers March 17, 2017

At Friday’s opening keynote session of the American Counseling Association 2017 Conference & Expo in San Francisco, psychotherapy sage Dr. Irvin Yalom shared his insights on everything from self-care and vulnerability as a therapist to counseling by text, his love of literature and the essential nature of the therapeutic bond.

Yalom, one of the most influential mental health professionals of our time, began the session by answering a question about the importance of self-care for counselors from moderator Adele Cehrs, the CEO of Epic PR Group and a former journalist. Yalom credited strong personal relationships, including his marriage of 60-plus years and consistent peer support, as keys to his

Dr. Irvin Yalom gives the opening keynote address at ACA’s annual conference & Expo March 17. (Photo by Paul Sakuma Photography)

own personal self-care. For many years, he has been an active participant in a “leaderless” therapy group for psychotherapists (among other groups) that meets for 90 minutes every two weeks. Within the confines of these confidential group sessions, members share their day-to-day struggles and client interactions that have evoked personal problems or concerns.

“I urge you to get into a group like that,” he told the more than 3,000 counselors assembled for the keynote. “It’s a key part of my week. I never miss a meeting if I can avoid it. That is my major source of self-care. That and getting therapy.”

Likewise, Yalom encouraged counselors in the audience to secure their own personal therapy, not just once, but many times throughout their careers.

In response to a question from Cehrs, Yalom also spoke about how and why he often chooses to “reveal” some aspect of himself in interactions with his clients. He said that his upcoming memoir — which he believes will be the last book that he will write — touches on this topic in some depth.

Yalom said he always tries to be “real” with clients and bring something of himself to the session. When Cehrs asked if he thought that he’d ever crossed a line and revealed too much, he thought for a moment before replying no.

“I can be quite revealing … but always in service of therapy,” he said.

Part of being revealing is choosing to be vulnerable as a therapist and admitting to his clients that he doesn’t have all the answers — a practice he started early in his career. Offering an example, Yalom recalled the first session he had as a young therapist with a female client in her 30s. He asked her what brought her to therapy.

“She said, ‘Well, I’m a lesbian,’” he recounts. This was in 1955, Yalom notes, and he genuinely had no frame of reference for this client at that time. “I don’t know what that is,” he told the client. “Could you please educate me?”

Yalom also recalled another valuable lesson he learned early on that cemented his belief that it could be valuable to put himself into his interactions with clients. While working in a long-term care facility, he was charged with treating a woman with catatonia. He met with her every day, but she never spoke. In fact, she was completely unresponsive, much like a living statue. Unsure of how to connect with a client who couldn’t respond, Yalom decided he would simply talk to her. He began sharing with her what he’d read that morning in the newspaper or talking about how he was doing.

Several months later, the patient was prescribed a new drug that had an amazing therapeutic effect, dispelling the catatonia and allowing the woman to speak again. Yalom was curious about her perception of the “therapy” he had tried during her period of catatonia and asked her what it was like.

“Dr. Yalom,” the woman said, “you were my bread and butter.”

This also demonstrated to Yalom the power of the therapeutic bond. He saw that simply by interacting with the woman and showing her that she still had value, even when she was catatonic, he had brought her comfort.

Yalom, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, is also known as a prolific writer of both nonfiction and fiction, including his widely praised “teaching stories” and “teaching novels.” He described these works to the audience as having “one leg in literature and one leg in psychotherapy.”

“When I was a teenager, I had this strong idea that the best thing one could do was to write a novel,” Yalom told the audience. However, he revealed, as the child of Russian immigrants, he essentially had two options when it came to career choice: “We could become doctors, or we could become failures.” Although, in truth, there was a third option. “We could go into business with our father,” he added.

Yalom also responded to queries about advice for new counselors and his views on the role of technology in counseling. He expressed regret that so many new counselors work in environments that focus solely on cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) because it is labeled an evidence-based model. “CBT omits the essence of psychotherapy — the interpersonal nature of the therapeutic relationship,” Yalom asserted.

When asked about telecounseling, Yalom talked about being invited to work for a company that facilitates counseling via text. He initially thought it was a horrible idea, but the organization convinced him to supervise some novice psychotherapists. Yalom was surprised by what he learned.

“They [the psychotherapists] weren’t doing what I would have done, but it was working,” he said. “Clients felt very connected.”

But when the company expanded to telephone and video counseling, clients weren’t as enthusiastic.

“There is a whole new generation that wants to talk that way [by text],” Yalom says. “They’re not comfortable on the phone or on video.”

Innovations such as these have the power to help many people, Yalom noted. Still, he reminded his supervisees — and the audience at his keynote — not to lose sight of the therapeutic alliance, even when using new technologies.

“You can still ask [the client], ‘How are things going between us?’”

Dr. Irvin Yalom (left) shared insights from his storied career and answered questions from the audience at ACA’s annual conference & Expo March 17. At right is moderator Adele Cehrs, CEO of Epic PR Group and a former journalist. (Photo by Paul Sakuma Photography)

Dr. Irvin Yalom signs books and meets attendees after his keynote address at ACA’s annual Conference & Expo March 17. (Photo by Paul Sakuma Photography)

For more photos from the conference and Yalom’s keynote, see bit.ly/1MOAysM

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Laurie Meyers is senior writer at Counseling Today. Contact her at LMeyers@counseling.org

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

Survey says: America is stressed out

By Bethany Bray March 14, 2017

Infographic by the American Psychological Association, APA.org

In five months between fall 2016 and January 2017, the overall stress levels of American adults increased from 4.8 to 5.1 on a 10-point scale, according to recent surveys by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Fifty-seven percent of the more than 3,000 people surveyed in January said America’s current political climate is a “very” or “somewhat significant” source of stress; 66 percent said the same about the future of the nation; and 49 percent reported that the outcome of the presidential election was a “very” or “somewhat significant” source of stress.

The percentage of Americans who reported experiencing at least one symptom of stress in the past month, including headaches or feeling nervous, overwhelmed, sad or anxious, increased from 71 percent in August 2016 to 80 percent in January.

Notably, APA’s August 2016 poll recorded Americans’ lowest overall stress level in 10 years of polling.

APA commissions an annual survey to compile statistics on stress and causes of stress in the United States. It completed an additional survey in January to gauge stress levels specifically in the wake of the recent presidential election.

Although the data indicated an increase in overall stress, it’s not all bad news. Forty-one percent of poll-takers said they were “significantly” or “somewhat better” at managing their stress compared with 10 years ago, whereas 39 percent said their ability to manage stress had stayed the same through the past decade.

Seventy-one percent said they have someone whom they can ask for needed emotional support but feel they still need more; 51 percent responded that they could use “at least a little more” emotional support than they currently receive.

Other notable findings:

Between August and January, the percentage of Americans who said that personal safety is a “very” or “somewhat significant” source of stress increased from 29 to 34 percent. This is the highest response since the question was first asked in 2008, according to APA.
Sixty-nine percent of blacks, 57 percent of Asians, 56 percent of Hispanics and 42 percent of non-Hispanic whites said that the outcome of the election was a “very” or “somewhat significant” source of stress.
The percentage of Americans saying that acts of terrorism are a “very” or “somewhat significant” source of stress increased from 51 percent to 59 percent from August to January.
The percentage of Americans saying police violence toward minorities was a “very” or “somewhat significant” of stress increased from 36 percent to 44 percent during the same time period.

Infographic by the American Psychological Association, APA.org

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Find out more, including further breakdowns of the data by demographics, age, race/ethnicity and other factors, at apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/index.aspx

From NPR: “Feeling way more stressed out? You’re not alone”

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Counselors, have you noticed clients presenting more signs of stress in recent months? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

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Bethany Bray is a staff writer for Counseling Today. Contact her at bbray@counseling.org

Follow Counseling Today on Twitter @ACA_CTonline and on Facebook at facebook.com/CounselingToday.

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

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Counseling Connoisseur: What Would Yalom Do? A Tribute

By Cheryl Fisher March 10, 2017

Editor’s note: CT Online columnist Cheryl Fisher writes this appreciation of Irvin Yalom in anticipation of his keynote address at ACA’s upcoming 2017 Conference & Expo in San Francisco. Find out more at counseling.org/conference/sanfransisco2017.

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“What I want is to be intimate with the knowledge that life is temporary. And then, in the light (or shadow) of that knowledge, to know how to live. How to live now.”

― Irvin Yalom, Creatures of a Day: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy

I have a passion for books. You know, the old-fashioned paper kind. The kind that are transforming, as they [themselves] are transformed by every crinkled, coffee-stained page and dog-eared corner with smudges of comments penciled in the margin. The kind that, once read, become a part of one’s being. I love books so much that this past summer, I had beautiful built-in bookshelves installed in my home, along with a window seat where I fancied myself enjoying my literary mecca. I have shelves devoted to theologians, philosophers, feminist scholars and mental and holistic health experts ― with a smattering of best-selling novels and summer romance paperbacks.

As I reflect on the insights penned on the pages of the many volumes now perched on my bookshelves, my attention turns to the vast wisdom found in the works of Irvin Yalom. His work, spanning decades, contributes to the counseling profession in ways that transformed psychotherapy from science to art. In The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients, Yalom invites the clinician to not only invest in, but therapeutically utilize, the client-counselor relationship that presents in each session. Through a series of vignettes, Love’s Executioner provides examples of the tender and complex tapestry of human experience that occurs between the therapist and client: “A therapist helps a patient not by sifting through the past but by being lovingly present with that person; by being trustworthy, interested, and by believing that their joint activity will ultimately be redemptive and healing.”

In Momma and the Meaning of Life, Yalom graciously offers his experience in grappling with his relationship with his own mother (“who had a poisonous tongue”) years after her death. He further examines grief therapy intimately by exploring the many facets of loss and death. He continues his exploration of death anxiety in Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death, where he posits, “It’s not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death. It’s like trying to stare the sun in the face; you can stand only so much of it.” He returns to the topic of death anxiety as he explores his own mortality in his more recent release, Creatures of a Day and Other Tales of Psychotherapy.

In his fictional teaching novels — The Schopenhauer Cure, The Spinoza Problem, Lying on the Couch and, my personal favorite, When Nietzsche Wept — Yalom plucks key philosophers and physicians from history and transplants them into a terrace of tales that not only explore the complexity of human behavior and mental processes, but dare to venture into the minds of those who struggle to understand it.

Yalom’s words and transparency have informed my own practice and guided me to discover my ultimate message as a counselor educator: “Illuminate the shadow and embrace your humanity so that you may fully consummate your life. For we are people, not pathologies seeking to connect to oneself, others and the Sacred.”

In tribute to this great clinician, author and educator, I offer online readers the article I wrote as a final letter to my graduating counseling students, titled What Would Yalom Do? Ten Nuggets of Wisdom for Counselors Old and New.

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Cheryl Fisher

Cheryl Fisher is a licensed clinical professional counselor in private practice in Annapolis, Maryland, and a visiting full-time faculty member in the Pastoral Counseling Department at Loyola University Maryland. Her current research examines sexuality and spirituality in young women with advanced breast cancer. She is working on a book titled Homegrown Psychotherapy: Scientifically Based Organic Practices that speaks to nature-based wisdom. Contact her at cyfisherphd@gmail.com.

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Dr. Irvin Yalom will speak Friday, March 17 at the 2017 ACA Conference & Expo in San Francisco and will sign books afterward. His keynote will also be live-streamed online. Find out more at counseling.org/conference/sanfrancisco2017

Find out more about his work and books at yalom.com

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.