As an Introvert and Highly Sensitive Person, I understand the struggles of balancing self-care while supporting others. I want to help you reduce overwhelm and honor your Strengths as a Sensitive Therapist so you can feel fulfilled in your work again.
All in systems
Finding referrals can be exhausting and tug on your heartstrings. Whether your caseload is full or an inquiring client isn’t a good fit (presenting concerns, location, fee, insurance, etc.), you may feel the pressure to find the exact right referral for everyone. What can you do instead? This post shares 6 ways to release the burden of finding referrals for everyone who reaches out while also being responsive and helpful.
When you create a practice or therapeutic style that honors your needs, the work can feel more sustainable. When you feel supported, you can more easily support your clients. Making changes may make your services unavailable to some folks and that’s okay! You can’t help everyone, especially if your needs are ignored, but you can help some people in deeply profound ways.
During the screening process, are you trusting your intuition to refer clients out? Initial contact with clients can seem so insignificant compared to the therapy itself, but this process is a critical part of maintaining a sustainable practice. You and the client must match on availability, fee, presenting issue, and other factors. Maintaining your boundaries is the compassionate choice and in the best interest of the client.
As a highly empathetic and deeply feeling therapist, setting boundaries feels uncomfortable, difficult, or impossible. You worry about being too business-like and not a caring human, but predictability creates safety for clients. With stronger boundaries comes fewer decisions and less emotional fatigue for you, the therapist.
As a Sensitive Therapist, it’s important to think outside the box when setting up your practice. Don’t worry about what you should do or what everyone else is doing, but what would feel supportive and sustainable to you. This could include more phone sessions, fewer phone calls, scheduling boundaries, and dedicated self-care days.
When you create an intentional and predictable schedule based on your own unique needs, you’ll feel more prepared for sessions, have energy to write notes, enjoy more self-care time, and have peace of mind knowing everything is done.
How behind on notes are you right now? Maybe it’s too painful to think about or you’re not even sure anymore. Whatever the amount, you are probably feeling a lot of anxiety and overwhelm right now. In this article, discover 5 ways to transform your note aversion and get support in clearing the backlog.
In this guest post, Maegan Megginson, walks you through how to get clear on what your goals are and how to create your own flexible goal-setting system to honor your needs and capacity as a Sensitive Therapist.
Feel more calm and in control of your finances so you can take the time off you need to thrive as a Sensitive Therapist. Manage money with the overwhelm by using your Sensitive Strengths and these practical tips.
Being empathetic is a powerful clinical skill, but becomes a burden when we need to switch from clinician to business owner. Our guilt can make it difficult to enforce our business policies and collect fees. We prioritize the needs of our clients over our own leaving us at risk for financial distress and emotional burnout.
Sensitive Therapists need more time to decompress after client sessions and feel overstimulated by the pressure to complete notes. As a result, we procrastinate and feel anxious and overwhelmed. When we create a structured routine that works for our needs and take the pressure off ourselves to be perfect, completing notes can become much more effortless.
How many clients should I see per week? As Highly Sensitive Therapists, we need to create a different metric for ourselves instead of comparing ourselves to our non-HST colleagues. We can be successful even when we see less clients.
As Highly Sensitive People, we are deeply impacted by criticism and failure, therefore we set high (often impossible) expectations for ourselves in an attempt to be perfect. The pursuit of perfectionism is a straight path to stress, overwhelm and exhaustion.
As Sensitive Therapists, we use a lot of our energy caring for others which can leave little time and energy to tend to the administrative side of being a therapist. It’s easy to get burned out and overwhelmed. Creating a daily routine, prioritizing tasks and incorporating regular decompression breaks can make a huge difference in our productivity and energy levels.
