We Can't Help Ourselves

Jan 6, 2020

32:39

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Curt and Katie talk about how difficult it is for therapists to take care of ourselves. We look at why we struggle with the self-care that we teach our clients, including shaming in our field, lack of connection to our shadow-self, and where we seek support.

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

In this episode we talk about:

Why the Giving Tree is a bad role model
Road blocks therapists put in their own way
Katie’s notion of Sacrificial Helping
The wounded healer concept
The reasons we do not take care of ourselves
How we define our value, especially related to the idea that our value is to help others
The harm of valuing productivity over all else
The search for meaning – what we do is meaningful to us
Volunteering on top of the work we do
The idea that you can be impacted by the therapy you do
The role that the shadow self plays
The strict, externalized parent and oppositionality
The shame for not “self-caring” enough or believing in the “right” form or health from our field
Burnout’s effect on decision-making
The lack of training on how to use the coping strategies on yourself
How to make decisions better about self-care as a therapist
Opening space for mistakes in our field
How relational therapies can be a solution for therapists who are grappling with their own stuff
Where to seek support (and where not to seek support)
Intention versus reactivity