Have you ever felt isolated as a therapist? You are not alone! This is a very common experience.
In today’s article I wanted to write about why it is so easy to feel isolated as a therapist. I have some unfiltered thoughts I’d like to share on this systemic issue.
I’ve touched on this issue before by offering some quick tips to help you make some friends and professional connections as a therapist.
Those ideas have value, but I think there are some deeper components as to why therapists are so isolated. In this article I will offer my thoughts about what kind of changes are necessary to make our profession less isolating.
Confidentiality
One of the most apparent reasons why you can feel isolated as a therapist is client confidentiality.
Confidentiality is so necessary for the safety of the therapeutic relationship. So please don’t hear me questioning the need for confidentiality!
We have to keep all the work we do with our clients confidential, including who we are seeing, and what we are talking about in session. Therefore, it can become isolating since we have so much private information stored inside of us that we won’t be telling anyone. We’ll never get to air it out anywhere.
Competition
Even in a context where there’s freedom to disclose fully, the element of competition may play a role.
Let’s say you’re on a treatment team and several different therapists are supporting the same client, there can be this air of competitiveness amongst professionals in the field.
This isn’t a universal thing that happens when you are consulting with other folks, or collaborating on the care for the same clients. But, I’ve definitely seen it happen.
When I’ve seen it, it tends to be kind of subtle. I don’t hear people saying things like: “I’m doing a better job of helping my client than you are. I know more stuff than you do.”
Rather, it comes out in more subtle comments. For example, you might hear someone say: “Oh, you didn’t know that for the differential diagnosis for (fill in the blank) you are supposed to do (fill in the blank)? Oh, I thought everyone knew that.” Some therapists make statements like this that make them sound like they are better than other therapists.
When we see other therapists have this competitive air about them, it naturally prompts us to feel the need to bring our own competitive air as well. We feel like we need to prove that we know what we are doing too. Or we may respond by withdrawing.
No Coworkers (For Some)
Another pretty obvious reason why you can be isolated as a therapist is for many of us – myself included – we have no coworkers.
If I wanted to, I could interact with zero other therapists in my professional life. I definitely chose a different path than that. But, it’s very possible to have a busy caseload and never interact with another therapist.
Listening To Problems All Day
Yet another variable that can make our profession feel quite isolating is that, for most of us, we spend the majority of our time talking to people about their problems.
We are hearing about people’s deep traumas. Oftentimes they share things they’ve never told anybody else.
If we’re not intentional we can start to go into the spiral of thinking that the world is full of a lot of bad things. And there isn’t a countersense of hope, or that there are good things happening.
Most of us burn out if we are weighed down by that perspective. Or, we start to wall up our emotions to start to protect ourselves. It can make us start to become more and more disconnected from ourselves. As a byproduct of that, we become more and more disconnected from other people. Not just our clients, but all people.
Systemic Issue: “Get Healthy First”
All of this, in and of itself, is plenty to make a therapist quite isolated. But, I think there is more to the story than just this. I think overall, across our field as a whole, there are some cultural values that are quite isolating in nature.
When I was back in graduate school the message that I received, both subliminally and explicitly is that, as therapists, we’re supposed to “get our stuff together”. And then from that space we can help people.
At first glance, this sounds like a good value to have. Because seemingly the opposite of that would be to not be self aware at all. Or think that whatever my state is, it’s not going to impact my clients at all. And we know that that’s not true.
We need to value our own growth, if we are expecting to encourage our clients to value their own growth.
But, it got skewed in the messaging that I received. That somehow we need to have it all together. Check that box, and then, we’re now equipped to help people. I think this way of thinking is incredibly dangerous.
Systemic Issue: Vulnerability Labeled As “Incompetence”
Another systemic issue within our profession that keeps folks isolated has to do with vulnerability. Our stated value is vulnerability. We hope people will feel comfortable saying, “I need help.” or “I don’t know what I am doing.”
We are encouraged to express ourselves this way on paper but then in practice vulnerability can often be mislabeled as being incapable.
Let’s say that I’m in a situation where I’m working with a new client and they’re presenting with something I haven’t really worked with before. Or maybe whatever they are coming in with is something that reminds me of something from my past that was really difficult for me.
We might say, “This is a good opportunity to be vulnerable. I will share with my consult group or share with a fellow therapist to invite their support.” But in these moments, that can often be perceived as incompetence. Others will say things like, “Oh, you should know how to deal with that. You should have already figured that out.”
This piggy backs off the previous point that some believe we need to have all of our “stuff” together before we help others. And again, that’s not how things work!
Some Cultural Values Need To Change
I can think of other things that are strong contenders for why our profession is an isolating place to work.
I haven’t even touched on how incredibly overworked most therapists are, or burnout levels, or poor pay. How do you even find time, if you are overworked, to go seek support? So I think there are plenty of variables that contribute to why many feel isolated as a therapist.
If we want to decrease therapist’s isolation, improve client care, and help more therapists to enter the profession then we need some radical change in our cultural values as a field.
Another way of saying this is: culturally, we should hold ourselves, as a profession, to the same standards that we ask our clients to hold themselves to.
Solution: Acknowledge Humanity of Therapists
We should be able to be human, acknowledge that we have needs, and ask for help when we need it.
We need to embrace these values as a profession across the board, from the top down. Employers need to embrace this with their employees, professors with their students, and graduate school administrators with their faculty.
If we are able to have a culture where folks are able to be human, and acknowledge their needs then that is going to trickle down into the culture of the profession at large.
I think we can embody this in our consult groups and in how we speak to others in our field. Every moment we interact with another therapist is an opportunity to write a new cultural value into our system. Am I being overly optimistic?? Maybe…
But, if we can all embrace this cultural change then, maybe, over time, our profession can become a place where we can view ourselves as humans, and our clients and leaders as equals. My hope would be that therapists would feel safe enough to share freely about what is going on, no matter how messy, and feel support and care in return. Just like we try to do for our clients.
I think that if we can shift our culture overall in that direction the field would be a far less isolating field to be in.
Calling For More Cultural Change
This isn’t the only time I’ve dived into some of the systemic issues within our profession. If you would like to hear my thoughts about why so many masters-leveled therapists don’t get licensed, check out the video below.
And, in the following article I take a look at the systemic issue of financial hardship for therapists, particularly at the beginning of their career.
Until next time, from one therapist to another: I wish you well.
-Marie
Image by WOKANDAPIX from Pixabay
Photo by Antoni Shkraba on Pexels
Photo by Jim Wilson on Unsplash
Leave A Reply