Are Therapists Satisfied With Their Careers?

Have you ever wondered if therapists are satisfied with their careers? If you’re a therapist, would you still choose this career if you could start over?

🎥 Prefer to watch instead? Check out the video version of this topic below:

https://youtu.be/y_F0W9zvAwM

Would Therapists Still Choose This Career if They Could Start Over? (https://youtu.be/y_F0W9zvAwM)

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the question: how do therapists feel about being a therapist?

In other articles and videos I’ve touched on how little folks are paid, difficulty of licensure, etc. There is a laundry list of different reasons why this is a challenging profession.

With all these difficulties, I wondered: are therapists satisfied with their careers? Do they regret becoming therapists? To gather some feedback, I put a poll out on Instagram. 345 folks responded!

In today’s article, I’m going to share the poll responses, look for themes, and dissect these questions.

Polling Data

Let’s dive into the responses so we can answer the question: are therapists satisfied with their careers?

The question I posted to Instagram stories was: If you could go back in time, would you still become a therapist? Respondents could answer: yes, no, or unsure.

Out of 345 responses, 86 folks (25%) said that they were unsure about whether they would still become a therapist if they could have a do-over.

The good news is that 220 of the therapists (64%) would choose to become a therapist again if given another chance.

11% (39 people) of the responders chose “no” as their answer. In total, 36 percent of those who responded either said they wouldn’t become a therapist or they were unsure.

That means one in three therapists say that they aren’t satisfied in their career. 😢

Digging Deeper

Fortunately, I posted a prompt inviting folks to expand on their reply.

32 people offered their responses. I organized their replies into themes.

Satisfied Therapists

Surprisingly, all of the replies that were on the more positive side neatly fit into one category. I titled this category: “It’s My Calling/Extremely Rewarding”.

Here are some examples of why some folks said they would choose to be a therapist again:

“I have to, it is my calling”
“It’s a sacred honor to be a part of my client’s healing journey”
“I love seeing client’s ‘ah-ha’ moments! Watching someone heal is incredibly beautiful!”

These are all different responses, but they all have a similar thread to them. Many of the statements communicated a feeling of knowing that this is what they were made to do and felt so rewarding.

Unsatisfied Therapists

For those who were more dissatisfied with their career choice, two broader themes emerged. I named one: “Poor Pay/Lack Of Benefits” and another: “Demands Are Too High/Licensure Is Too Difficult”.

Here are some of the responses folks gave that fit into the “Poor Pay/Lack Of Benefits” category:

would you choose to become a therapist again

And, here are some of what folks said for the next category:

My Thoughts On Survey Responses

When I look at these responses, it seems as though the therapists who are satisfied with their careers have found some balance between the work feeling rewarding and being compensated enough to support their livelihood.

Or if they feel like they’re not being compensated enough, then perhaps they are prioritizing the value of how meaningful the work is over adequate compensation.

However, it seems to me, that for those who said they are unsure or dissatisfied with their career choice, they just couldn’t seem to justify the calling and sense of meaning given how poor the compensation and benefits were. Or how difficult it is to become licensed.

So if we just take things at face value it seems to be a relatively simple problem. But, the solution to the problem might be a little more complicated.

How Is Happiness Measured?

I tried looking to see if there were any available studies or research about whether therapists are satisfied with their careers. Surprisingly, there was not much out there.

But, I will share a couple of things that I did find. There is a website called CareerExplorer that I hadn’t heard of before. So, I’m unsure how legitimate the information they have is.

They have a piece on their website called, “Are counselors happy?” Right at the beginning, they state: “Counselors rate their happiness above average.” The article goes on to say, “…counselors rate their career happiness 3.5 out of 5 stars which puts them in the top 31% of careers.”

That’s a big claim! It made me wonder where they had come up with the 3.5 out of 5 stars statistic. I found five different variables that they took into account to come up with those numbers.

5 Ingredients For Happiness

The first variable they look at is how happy counselors are with their salary. For this category, “…counselors rated their satisfaction with their salaries 2.7/5 stars.”

Other variables they use to measure happiness include meaningfulness of work (3.8 out of 5 stars), and how well personalities fit with the work (4.1 out of 5 stars). They also measured how enjoyable the work environment is for therapists (3.8 out of 5 stars). Finally, they asked counselors if they are making the best use of their abilities (3.5 out of 5 stars).

One possibility is that the combination of variables and how therapists weighed each of them doesn’t necessarily amount to happiness. Even if everything about your career is great – except your salary is poor – you may still be very unhappy.

Because of that, I’m not sure if things shake out to a 3.5 out of 5 points on a happiness scale. But that’s just me 🤷‍♀️

The responses to this study display the dichotomy we have in our field. The work can be quite meaningful and satisfying, But oftentimes the pay is poor. So, what do we do?

A Systemic Issue

One huge systemic issue is that our culture does not value mental health care enough. There is not enough money invested in mental health care. As a result, therapists who are working within the system are also not compensated adequately or cared for well.

Let me be explicitly clear about a belief that I hold. Mental health care should be more adequately funded on a systemic level. Period. Full stop.

Despite how inadequately funded it is, many of us still choose this profession. It is up to us to decide, based on our individual values and needs, how to go about doing this career.

That may mean for some folks that they opt out of this profession altogether. Others may opt to choose a more profitable route in therapy to fund their livelihood. Some folks may choose to work in a setting that doesn’t have as high of compensation but aligns with their values. Or, maybe, they’re in the job that they are able to find right now and they are making it work.

There’s way more nuance to this topic than my little Instagram poll could unearth! Ultimately, I hope everyone feels a sense of agency to choose a career path that is the best fit for you, your needs, and your values. And get your paycheck also!

I don’t want anyone to feel stuck in whatever the situation is if it’s not a good fit for them.