How Do I Prevent Burnout as a Pre-Licensed Therapist (or anytime)?
At the end of Spring, I usually receive at least a few inquiries from pre-licensed therapists who are graduating from their counseling degree programs and researching internship opportunities. Their primary concern is always how to find a field placement that doesn’t leave them feeling burned out before they even get licensed and fully start their career. The thought of not being able to choose who they work with or how many clients they’ll have to see is understandably overwhelming for any of us, but especially a new therapist.
This isn’t a concern just for pre-licensed therapists, of course, but any therapist working in the usual places - agencies, hospitals, schools - that come with demanding caseloads and productivity standards (aka the road to burnout).
Being a therapist isn’t like any other job, it’s deeply emotional and has the potential to be very draining work, especially for highly sensitive folks who are naturally more empathetic, deep processors, notice every little unspoken detail, and get easily overstimulated as a result. Even with my best boundaries and self-care practices in place, I still end client days with at least a little emotional residue to sort through.
Bolstering Against Burnout
This is exactly why I started the Sensitive Therapist blog and my consulting business in the first place. I was that budding therapist intern who was terrified of burnout and didn’t want to dread this work I valued so much. In my previous work as a manager at a small family-owned business, I had pushed myself too far and burned out so I knew I needed to bolster against it. Even in my first year of working as a therapist, I was already seeing folks who were a year ahead of me in the licensure process calling it quits. This was especially worrisome because these were people I perceived as highly gifted clinicians, people I looked up to. How would I make sure I wasn’t next?
Working as a trainee, I was lucky enough to be accepted into one of my school’s counseling centers which focused on holistic approaches, ran more like a private practice setting in terms of scheduling autonomy and client load, and had an incredible community. Years later, I still consider being there as one of the most transformative experiences of my personal and professional life.
As you can imagine, the transition to the next stage felt daunting after such a positive experience. When it came time to leave the nest of my practicum site after graduation and decide on an internship, I remember going back and forth about working in a school or agency setting. A LOT of back and forth! These places were touted as the fastest way to get hours and experience, but my instincts were telling me to run in the other direction! I just knew I would feel burned out by the lack of autonomy in managing my schedule or picking my clients.
Despite feeling scared of the unknown, I leaped into supervised private practice as an intern and was actually able to get all my hours this way. Unconventional for sure, but I never worked at any other sites - no schools, no couples centers, no hospitals, no agencies. For a while, I felt insecure because I didn’t have those other layers of experience.
Benefits of an Unconventional Path
What was I really missing though - being overworked or the lack of autonomy? I saw couples, families, teens, and kids in my private practice internship. I worked with multiple supervisors and completed different trainings. When I reframed it, I had the experiences I needed to understand my clinical direction. Along the way, I also built a thriving private practice (and a budding consulting business) by the time I graduated.
This path to licensure took me three years post-grad to get licensed. I kept my caseload at 10-14 clients per week, working a part-time admin job to stabilize my income and take the pressure off when my caseload fluctuated. Although it took me a year longer to get licensed than my peers who took the more traditional path, it was totally worth it. Not only did I build my private practice, but I never got burned out. Thinking outside the box was and continues to be the key to sustainable work as a therapist for me.
Whether you’re a pre-licensed therapist weighing the options for your first internships or a fully licensed therapist, I have a very important question for you - how can you set yourself up for longevity?
