What they don't teach you in graduate school

When I entered the field of psychology, it was (at least consciously) for reasons that many therapists have: a strong desire to help people. I've always had that passion, that drive to help others grow and seeing the potential they have. I wanted my career to have deep meaning and to make a tangible difference in this world. I'm also fascinated by human behavior and feelings, and wanted to understand why people behaved the way they did.

My passion of writing almost surfaced into a career of journalism when I started college, but my personality didn't mesh well with the field and I switched my major to psychology. I told myself writing would be my hobby, and some day I'd make something of it, but I wanted something more stable to pay the bills.

It's been over ten years since I made the decision and I've struggled over the last few years about whether I made the right decision. Some days I love psychology and other days I'd rather hide and not deal with the public.. or personality disorders.

Hate and love are too strong of words, but I do have a like/dislike relationship with the field. Like many therapists, I'm an introvert, and while I like making connections with people and helping them, it's also incredibly emotionally draining. By Friday, I am depleted. I have very little left for anyone else in my life, and so I spend the weekend "recovering" and recharging my battery. And you start all over on Monday.

There's a high rate of burnout in the field, especially if you work with severe mental illness and the underprivileged (in other words, not in private practice). When I try to explain this to people who aren't working in mental health, they nod, but it's always clear that they don't "get it." Typically people I meet in every day life are more concerned that I'm analyzing them and I reassure them, "I'm off the clock."

I had an "ah ha" moment while talking to a colleague of mine. Do you know that feeling you have when you think you must be the only person in the world that has ever felt a certain way about something? And then you're talking to someone who, on their own, start spilling how they feel and it's the exact same thing? Suddenly you feel relief and a closer connection to that person. Thank goodness I'm not the only one!

So my colleague tells me how she has a hard time socializing and being around people outside of her immediate family when she's not at work. How it can feel draining and almost like work to even be around people, because after a week of doing therapy, all she wants is to be alone or just alone with her husband. As an introvert, after talking and dealing with people all week, after giving and connecting emotionally with so many people, she needs some quiet alone time.

Ding ding ding! That's been my experience too, ever since I started my career. It was frustrating to watch my social life dwindle. I was spending much less time with family and friends than I did five years ago, but there was a reason for it. I was exhausted. I had a period of time where I was starving for alone time or chilling alone with my husband. I craved it and wondered if I was turning into a hermit.  However, after I granted time to myself and felt rested, I found that I enjoyed and really missed spending time with people in my personal life.

In graduate school they don't teach you about burn-out or vicarious trauma*, which is really unfortunate considering psychologists have one of the highest rates of suicide of all professions (or last I heard they did). 

You learn as you go, you reach near burn-out points, you suffer through burnout, you have periods of depression, you try to manage a challenging job while managing the stressful life events that all humans go through.

You look for support from colleagues who (thank goodness) are therapists and lets admit, it's pretty convenient to have coworkers who are therapists. You learn from them. You observe. You struggle with set backs and kick yourself for not being social one weekend and then realize, you probably need to relax and there will be another time to socialize with those people.

You wonder whether it's all worth it, if your career is consuming your life, if you need to draw better boundaries between work and personal life. You catch yourself thinking about work problems when you're at home and you remind yourself of boundaries. You decide maybe you need to get back into therapy yourself to sort all of this out and then you're not sure when you have time to squeeze it in. But if you tell your clients the importance of being engaged in therapy, shouldn't you be modeling that yourself?

Then after all that, you realize that all your body needs is a nap, and that the most important message you give your clients and should model for yourself, is to take care of yourself.

*Note: vicarious trauma is when a therapist is traumatized by hearing and treating people who have been through trauma.