Are you unhappy as a therapist? You are not alone! There are so many that are unhappy in the work that we’re doing. So what can you do if you find yourself feeling this way?
As you are well aware, there’s so much more to this job than if you like being a therapist or not. There’re aspects of your work environment, your personal life, whether you’re working too much or getting underpaid that all make an impact on your happiness and attitude towards your career.
A lot of folks might really love parts of this therapy profession but may also be feeling unhappy as a therapist.
I thought it might be helpful to make a little triage list for you. If you’re feeling unhappy as a therapist, I’ll list some steps you could consider running through to help you pinpoint what’s going on.
Then, you might be able to make some adjustments so that hopefully you don’t have to just keep feeling this way.
Of course, I have to give the disclaimer that this is not clinical, professional advice. But, these would be the steps that I would run through if I found myself really unhappy in my job as a therapist.
If you’d rather watch than read, check out the video version of the article below:
8 steps to try when unhappy as a therapist
1) Assess for burnout & compassion fatigue
Given the nature of our profession, I think it’s always a good idea to start by assessing for potential for burnout and compassion fatigue.
I really like to use the ProQOL assessment to do this initial check. ProQOL stands for Professional Quality of Life scale. It’s available as a self-test and it only takes a few minutes.
After taking it you receive some assessment results for how you’re doing as far as burnout and compassion fatigue. It also includes some of those positive feelings that you may be feeling about your career. If those things are out of balance it’s really helpful to see that laid out in the ProQOL.
When burnout is at play, I believe it involves a very different set of changes than what I’m going to talk about in the rest of this article.
So, if you do the ProQOL and you are clearly burnt out, I would make a big pivot. (And go ahead and pivot out of the rest of the tips of this article.)
I would suggest making some really aggressive changes to your work within your reasonable power. Hopefully this will help the burnout from spiraling into a much worse place.
2) Complete the ACT “Bullseye” exercise
After doing the ProQOL the next thing I would probably do is a check-in with myself by running through the ACT Bullseye exercise.
This exercise helps you look at your values across different arenas of your life. Such as your relationships, workplace, personal life, health, etc. Then you can evaluate how close or far away you are to living out your values in these arenas.
Sometimes there may be areas of our lives that are suffering quite a bit outside of our workplace which can make things about our career much more difficult. Or potentially unsustainable.
If there seems to be something really off-kilter outside of your career then it’s possible that that might be contributing, in part, to your unhappiness in your career.
3) Ask “who, what, where, when, why” questions
The next step if you are unhappy as a therapist is to go through the typical therapist questions that you might use if you had a new client come in with a presenting issue.
Ask yourself, “Who, what, where, when, why” type questions. You might ask yourself, “So you’re feeling unhappy in your job. Can you remember when that first started? What sort of circumstances might have been going on for you around that time? Was the unhappiness sudden and came on all at once or was it more gradual?”
You know the drill! Because we do this with our clients all the time. Try to put your therapist hat on and ask yourself these sorts of questions.
If this feels tricky to do on your own, you can invite a therapist friend to help you run through these sorts of questions. Or you could pull up questions and answer them in a journal.
See if anything comes up and if anything relates back to the ProQUOL and the ACT bullseye.
4) Check for common causes of therapist unhappiness
There are definitely common reasons why therapists say they’re unhappy. Read the list below and see if any of these might be at play for you.
- Being overworked
- Being underpaid
- Being poorly treated
- Not having enough clients in a private practice setting
Sometimes these different reasons for unhappiness can overlap with each other and have a compounding effect. So check-in and see if any of the items on the list apply to you, take note, and carry onto the next step.
5) Validate what comes up
There’s a phenomenon I see happen so often with therapists when they get to this point of being able to pinpoint some likely reasons you are unhappy as a therapist. But, rather than using this information to problem solve, many start to listen to unkind inner voices that invalidate whatever might be coming up.
So, the next step is to validate whatever has come up for you thus far. Validate the reasons that you’re starting to identify might be contributing to your unhappiness. As well as your emotions, reactions and thoughts that have come up.
It’s so common for a therapist to get to the point of being able to pinpoint their reason for unhappiness, such as being overworked, but then immediately say something like: “I should be grateful because at least I have a job and a roof over my head.”
Yes, you should be grateful for all of those things! But, sometimes those statements can act as an invalidation. Often that statement of gratitude gets followed up with saying, “Therefore, I shouldn’t be unhappy.” Saying that eliminates all the nuance.
It’s okay to make space for acknowledging your gratitude for all you do have or for what is going well in your life. While at the same time acknowledging that there are some variables at play that are making it difficult for you to feel happy despite all the positives in your life.
6) Make small incremental changes
Hopefully at this point in the tirage process you’ve identified at least some potential contributing factors to your unhappiness. My recommendation at this point is to make small, sustainable, incremental changes.
Give each change a little trial period. Again, you know this because you’re therapists, but if you make little incremental changes that make small approximations toward whatever final change we need we’re more likely to actually do those small changes.
Also, as you make each small change you can collect some data. Sometimes that can also help reinforce any future changes that might be relevant in helping you move towards happiness.
7) Escalate (as needed)
Next, escalate as needed. Make a small change. Try it out for a little bit, and see how it feels. If need be, make another small adjustment.
Keep escalating as you go. Making small incremental changes like this will help you feel more decisive.
There may come a point where you do need to make a much bigger decision. Maybe you’ve tried lots of little changes and you’re still feeling miserable. You may conclude that this job/career/workplace just isn’t for you.
8) Find support where you can
If you can access it, find support somewhere. Obviously, if you can afford to have your own personal therapist, I fully support that option.
Lean on your friends and trusted therapist colleagues to support you. Seek out your safe people in your workplace or in areas of your life unrelated to your career.
If you don’t have any support, go online! There are actually some really supportive spaces online. Maybe just vet them first.
Extra burnout tools
If after reading through this list you may be realizing that you are feeling more burnt out than you realized. Here are some early signs of therapist burnout.
And, check out my article all about therapist burnout.
Hopefully this article gives you a starting point to build from. See what you can find. I imagine you will learn something useful by doing this triage checklist and can then go from there.
And until next time, from one therapist to another: I wish you well!
-Marie
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