I recently attended a faculty awards ceremony at my university. The faculty award recipients, along with the audience, watched videos of remarks and comments from the awardees’ students and colleagues. All of the remarks were expectedly heartwarming and lovely; however, I could not help to notice a trend in each of the videos. Nominators remarked […]
Recently we have heard a lot about the importance of therapist self-care. Jeffrey Barnett (2014) made a strong case that self-care is an ethical imperative based on the APA Ethics Code principles of beneficence and maleficence, as well as the guidelines related to competence, managing personal problems and conflicts, and avoiding harm. Self-care has […]
While all psychotherapists aspire to practice ethically, this can at times prove challenging. It may seem at first glance that practicing ethically means simply following the ethics code of one’s profession. While this is a good place to start, unfortunately this is not sufficient for ensuring ethical practice. There are several reasons for this: 1. […]
As a newly minted post-doctoral fellow, I have repeatedly encouraged junior trainees to eat lunch, talk about their pets, get candy from my candy bowl, or offer to get them coffee if I am already headed out to get my own. At its core, I am trying to model and foster self-care amongst trainees in […]
In the research world, we often hear the mantra publish or perish. It serves as a reminder that careers and advancements depend on research productivity and contributions to the field. However, right around the time I accepted my first academic position, I stumbled upon a book cover that caught my eye. It was a series […]
In the hectic pace of being an early career psychologist (ECP) and junior faculty member, it is often more possible to extol the virtues of self-care rather than to authentically engage in it. In many cases, this challenge may partially stem from limited education and insufficient opportunity to develop effective self-care habits during doctoral training. […]
Like other helping professions (e.g., physical health service providers), psychotherapists are expected to serve clients without expecting anything in return (Guy, 2000). Although the helping within psychotherapy is unidirectional, therapy involves a bidirectional flow in which the client and the therapist impact each other (Kottler, 2010). The role of a psychotherapist departs from other helping […]
Psychology graduate students face many challenges, balancing academic demands, field placement requirements, often financial limitations, and the responsibilities of personal life. These competing obligations can often lead to burnout, defined by the Mayo Clinic as “a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity” […]