How To Beat Burnout As A Mental Health Clinician

 Written by: Kelsey Someliana-Lauer, Therapy Practice Solutions VA

Have you ever experienced burnout?  If you’re like 52% of the working population, you’ve likely felt the tell-tale signs of burnout.  Being a mental health clinician brings an extra challenge; nearly 78% - yes, over three quarters! - of mental health practitioners reported feeling burnt out in one 2020 study.  In another study, 70% of clinicians were shown to experience compassion fatigue, a combination of secondary trauma and traditional burnout.  Clinicians working in agencies, responsible for large caseloads, or working with higher-risk populations were especially susceptible to both burnout and compassion fatigue.

If you’re wondering if you’ve experienced burnout, here are some of the most prominent signs:

• Feelings of extreme tiredness or exhaustion

• Feeling of dread regarding work, or intense negative thoughts about one’s job

• Decreased productivity in the workplace

• Lack of motivation to do things outside of work (usually due to exhaustion)

If any of these signs sound like you, it may be time to make a change.  The good news is mental health clinicians can arm themselves with tools to help beat burnout, especially in a profession so geared towards giving to others.  Check out these tips on how to prevent burnout and increase longevity in your practice:

Start (and Maintain!) a Self-Care Routine

We’ve heard this tip preached since graduate school, yet many of us are guilty of not maintaining a self-care routine.  Self-care is more than just taking a walk once a week or having a long soak in a bath - self-care looks like eating three meals a day, keeping a manageable caseload, turning off our work phone after 5pm, and anything else that reduces the stress of work.  Having your own therapist is not only self-care, but vital to preventing compassion fatigue.  If you don’t have a strong self-care routine, now may be the time to implement this.

Maintain Strong Boundaries

Self-care and boundaries go hand-in-hand.  Maintaining boundaries sounds like talking to your supervisor when your caseload becomes unmanageable, advocating for a raise, actually using your well-earned PTO hours (and not checking work emails on your day off, either), and simply saying no.  Outside of the office, boundaries look like cancelling plans if you’re exhausted, assessing if your work-life balance is adequate, and making changes if you feel the tell-tale signs of burnout creeping in.  Stick to your values!

Offload Admin Tasks

Admin tasks can take a clinician 8 hours a week or more to do.  Let’s be honest - you didn’t become a mental health clinician because you really wanted to be on hold with your least favorite insurance panel for 2 hours on your lunch break, or to make cute social media graphics, or to write blogs about fighting depression.  If admin tasks are taking up what could be face-to-face time with clients (and valuable income!), offload what tasks you’re able to.  Virtual Assistants are able to complete a variety of those things you hate - data entry, answering phones and emails, making Instagram and Facebook posts, writing blogs, designing websites, scanning in documents, and so much more.  Reduce those admin hours and use all your newfound time to earn more income or start that self-care routine we talked about earlier!

If you’re experiencing burnout and need a helping hand, we’re here for you.  Virtual Assistants at Therapy Practice Solutions are trained to answer emails and phones in a compassionate and empathetic way, remain HIPAA compliant when handling documents or responding to calls, and research trends in mental health design when making graphics, websites, or blogs.  If there’s a task you don’t want to do - don’t do it.  Let us help you!

If you’re interested in seeing what a Virtual Assistant can do for you, fill out a contact form on our website to hear from us.  Talk to you soon!