Teetering on the Edge of Compassion Fatigue
How have you been holding up? If you’re like the many Sensitive Therapists I’ve heard from, it’s starting to get more difficult doing teletherapy from home while holding the vast array of experiences our clients are bringing to us. It takes a lot of energy to support others through a pandemic while also navigating our own version of anxiety and uncertainty.
If you have more questions than answers right now, you’re not alone. These are unprecedented times and you’re probably feeling emotionally depleted. In this post, I wanted to address and normalize some of what you might be experiencing on an emotional and physical level as a Sensitive Therapist.
Feeling Overwhelmed and Overstimulated
Working from home can be overwhelming if it’s hard to ensure privacy during sessions, you’re balancing work and homeschooling, or you don’t have a comfortable workspace. Perhaps the most difficult part of doing teletherapy is the strain on our poor eyes! Many of you have been sharing how much your eyes hurt and that you’re getting more frequent headaches.
As HSPs who are more perceptive to visual stimulation and may rely on our other senses to do our intuitive work, telehealth is very overstimulating. What could be helpful is spacing out sessions so you can close your eyes in between, practicing eye exercises, incorporating more phone appointments, or gazing away from the screen throughout the session. It can be helpful to name the need for visual breaks to your client, as they may be needing this as well.
Managing Separation Between Home and Work
Even though there are many parts about working from home that I enjoy, especially being able to skip the hectic commute, I still miss my office. You also may be missing your thoughtfully curated therapy space, the container you intentionally created to do your best work. Our offices can create a sense of predictability and safety, free from the need to simultaneously manage home responsibilities and distractions.
When we’re working from home, it’s so tempting to tend to a house chore between sessions or jump right back into family time as soon as the day is done. I’ve started pretending that I’m at the office to create a boundary between work and home, including giving myself time after my last session to breath and take a few minutes to ground before transitioning into home life.
Another big struggle of telecommuting, especially if you don’t have a dedicated home office or are doing therapy in your bedroom, is that there is no separation between your personal and workspace. If you’re a spongy empath type, this can be especially problematic and may prevent you from being able to step away from work or create emotional/energetic boundaries.
As someone who is working from their bedroom, I have created a tiny workspace in a corner with a screen/room divider that I put around my desk. It’s been helpful to have a dedicated workspace. I also ensure that I do some energy clearing at the end of the day which could include aromatherapy, clapping, opening a window, having plants nearby, or using visualization.
Needing Time Off When There’s Nowhere to Go
Something I’ve been thinking about and hearing from others - is it okay to take vacation time right now? Even though we can’t physically travel anywhere, staycations are still perfectly valid and even more necessary than before. Better to take a bit of planned time off now than being forced to stop working due to compassion fatigue or stress-related health issues later on.
If you’re starting to feel burned out or just need some space to decompress, consider gifting yourself a long weekend or weeklong staycation. With many therapists having lower caseloads, it may be easy to find a cover therapist. It’s also important to reach out for consultation, get support from colleagues, and nourish ourselves with self-care activities. Don’t forget to fill your own tank!
Trying to Manage the Extremes
The longer we stay home, the more I’m noticing some clients becoming more anxious, lonely, or stressed while others are increasingly benefitting from the solitude. It can be quite a rollercoaster of clinical content throughout the week! This is a lot to navigate as an empathetic and perceptive therapist who feels everything deeply and is more impacted by our clients’ experiences.
It may be helpful now more than ever to create space between our sessions to regulate and ground ourselves before moving onto the next session. Also give yourself permission to just do the basics, to get support from colleagues and consultation, and to rest as much as you need to.
Not Having the Answers
For probably the first time in our lives, we’re experiencing the unknown right along with our clients. As the support person, you may feel pressure to be one step ahead. It’s okay to not know all the answers or to have your own anxieties.
Much of the value we provide as therapists still applies in this situation and is just as effective. It’s still just as valuable and healing to hold space without judgment, offer tools for emotional regulation, and help empower our clients to find their own solutions. We don’t need to know, we just need to be a safe and reflective space.
Supporting clients who are experiencing some of the same emotions and uncertainties as we are is challenging and depleting. Left unchecked, it could send us to a place of overwhelm, compassion fatigue, and burnout. Now more than ever, it’s vital that we set strong boundaries, take time to ground ourselves, create space between sessions, get support from our therapist communities, and take time off if we need to.
Resources
Meditation for Grounding and Cleansing Energy
