SMART Management of C-A-L-M Concerns
As a practising psychotherapist for several years now, whenever I meet other professionals in the field of counselling and psychotherapy, I find that we are all dealing with similar concerns. Here I have put together the four most common issues that professionals in the mental health field seem to experience. I am using the acronym “CALM” to list these concerns.
Compassion fatigue: Burnout among mental healthcare workers is very real! With increasing caseloads and rapid-fire back-to-back sessions, it is easy to fall into the bottomless pit of compassion fatigue. The technical definition of compassion fatigue is “a state of mental and physical exhaustion that can occur when someone regularly experiences the trauma of others.” In some circles, this is also referred to as “secondary” or “vicarious” trauma. Constantly working with survivors of abuse, listening to frequent retelling of traumatic events and continually being in the presence of mentally ill individuals and their stressed care-givers can lead to compassion fatigue.
Appointment scheduling and logistics: Some of us work in teams while others like me, work alone. Whichever way we handle our work, scheduling appointments and managing logistics are always challenging. More so, when we work with clients battling ADD or ADHD because such clients can never arrive on time. And then, there are the last-minute cancellations or sudden requests for emergency sessions when a suicidal client is on the scene. When there is a time-sharing option added to the mix (where the same office space is shared by multiple therapists), scheduling and logistics take on a whole new life of their own!
Locating other professionals for cross-referrals: We often need to refer our clients to other professionals. For example, I frequently refer young children with autism or ADHD for occupational therapy. I also find it beneficial to refer adult clients to a clinical psychologist for psychometric assessment in some cases. At times, when my caseload is too full, I need to deflect new inquiries and refer them out to other psychotherapists. And herein lies a huge challenge. I have a bunch of specialists on my referral list, who often tell me that they are running full and can’t take any additional clients. This necessitates expanding my database of authentic, reliable professionals that I can work with. I am sure all therapists and counsellors face this challenge from time to time.
Managing documentation and reporting: A full caseload, along with an ever-increasing demand for sessions, often puts tremendous pressure on us professionals to squeeze in more and more clients into a limited time frame. In doing so, the one thing that often takes a backseat is documentation. Ensuring that each client’s case notes are up-to-date, filed correctly and stored safely is such a critical aspect of the work we do. Pending paperwork is the biggest challenge that all of us have to grapple with. Sometimes, this can start eating into our personal time when we choose to keep all casework-summary writing, report preparation and filing for the weekends. And if we don’t document while the session is fresh in our minds, we might miss out on capturing crucial data related to each client.
I have been pondering these challenges for a while now, and based on trial-and-error of my own, along with inputs from some colleagues in the field, I have arrived at a “SMART” solution to manage the above difficulties, which I am listing below.
Scheduling time for daily self-care, and weekly “me-time”
Making the time for networking with other professionals through professional forums
Allocating sufficient gaps between appointments – at least 15 minutes
Researching the work of other professionals before making a referral
Taking the time to finish each day’s documentation on the same day without fail
I have been following the above tips myself and I have noticed a marked improvement in the quality of my work as well as an enhancement in the overall quality of my life. I trust that some of you might also find these tips helpful.
Mina Dilip
RPC35
