As we continue our exploration of therapist well-being, I am honored to introduce you to Colorado therapist, Briana M. Johnson, LPC, LAC. Briana shared several elements of her personal approach to therapist well-being and I hope they may inspire you!
Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Therapist Well-Being
Like many therapists, working during the COVID-19 pandemic helped Briana realize the ways in which the way she was doing her work were not working for her. Briana explains, “Since COVID, my own wellness and self-care have become much higher priorities. I took a Sensorimotor Psychotherapy training and it revealed to me how often my system was dysregulated. Since then, I’ve decided to pursue my own private practice with a goal to see 16 clients per week. I currently am at a university counseling center and we see 24 per week in addition to staff meetings and other job requirements. I realized how much that environment was keeping me scrambling from one thing to the next and how big a toll this took on me. In order to do this, I also have to charge premium fees and I’ve been more honest about how much I need to make financially to take care of myself and be able to do this job for a long time.”
Morning Routine to Support Therapist Well-Being
How do you start your morning? Briana is working on establishing a morning routine that supports her well-being. She shared, “Several people I admire for their self care shared with me they start their mornings intentionally with reading, movement, etc. I’ve been working to do this as well to “belong to myself” before I belong to others. I sometimes (because perfect is not the goal) start my day now with a 10 minute yoga video or at the very least something that is not social media. I realized I was starting the day with “other people’s thoughts” (as I’ve come to think of it) and it often left me feeling stressed from the time I got out of bed. “
Identifying Our Niche & Schedule
Over the years that I have worked as a therapist + provided supervision and coaching for other therapists, I have found that an important element of therapist well-being and sustainability in the mental health field is not trying to be the therapist for everyone and taking our own needs into consideration when we design our schedules. Briana shared a couple of ways that she has approached her private practice which are great examples of how this can be done.
Briana described her approach; “I have narrowed down my niche by going through my calendar and asking myself who “lights me up” and is an energizing client for me.”
Briana is also using a form of concurrent documentation in order to streamline her documentation process and has noted clinical benefits for her clients. She explains, “In addition to scheduling 15 mins between sessions, I also have the client start writing the note with me at the end of the session. There is research that says clients often forget what is worked on in therapy and if they forget, their clinical outcomes tend to be worse (makes sense!), so I ask clients to identify their takeaways from session in the last 5 of the 50 minutes. Some clients have started a therapy notebook to keep all of these (which I love) and I get to start writing my note along with them. This helps me to finish the note in the next 15 minutes with very little added effort on my part. I had no idea how much extra energy notes were taking me just because I was having to reach back in my memory to know what happened!”
Read more tips for taking inventory of your current documentation practices and finding an approach to clinical documentation that is do-able and sustainable here.
Supporting Ourselves In Session
As therapists, we can be so focused on tending to our client’s needs during sessions that we ignore our own experience and needs. I loved how Briana used her Sensorimotor training to identify a way to support herself in session. Briana described, “I am also trained in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Level 1 and during my training, I had experiential sessions with someone trained in the method. With her, I developed a somatic resource that helps me when I’m stressed in session. I noticed that pressing my toes gently into the ground pushes my body back just a tiny bit and this readjustment reminds me to not work harder than the client and to check whether I’m getting unnecessarily pulled into what the client is experiencing.”
How do you support your well-being during sessions? My desk holds a number of tools to support me before or during my telehealth sessions including; essential oils, lotion, quotes that inspire and/or ground me. Because I have difficulty staying focused when sitting at the computer all day, I walk around between sessions and have given myself permission to use fidgets during my telehealth sessions.
Final Thoughts from Briana
“It’s great to notice all the little things I’m doing to make this work sustainable! Self care is not all bubble baths! 😉 “
Thank you to Briana for sharing her approach to therapist well-being.
If you are a therapist who read this post, feel free to post a comment elaborating on one of Briana’s ideas of sharing one of your favorite practices or routines to support your well-being.
More about Briana
Briana provides therapy for adults via telehealth in Colorado. Briana’s practice is called Blue Bristlecone Counseling. Briana says “I help stressed out professionals of any gender to heal trauma, enjoy their relationships and make work suck less.”
Thank you so much for sharing this! Great and insightful suggestions!