Online Therapy for Physician Burnout: Building Skill
For those high achievers and physicians who are experiencing burnout, know the process of building your mental health skills takes time and a process. In this blog, I’ll be talking about the process and the frustrations many have while building their emotional and mental health skill set.
If you are like any of my other clients, you want to make change as quickly and as painless as possible. Well, I got some bad news for you. This isn’t a quick and painless process. I write about some of this in another blog found here. That blog summarizes that therapy is a journey. The transformative power of therapy is in that specific process of processing and exploring that journey. Just like life, you don’t just rush through it as fast as possible to say that you experienced it.
Online Therapy for Physician Burnout
I believe that building your mental health skills is just like building any other skill. The easiest way to explain the process of therapy is to compare it to building your physical fitness skills. Imagine if you want to run a marathon when you haven’t exercised in years. On the day of the marathon, you don’t get off your butt and just start. You will be in a world of hurt. What you do is you start a training program. Maybe you start to work with a professional. Maybe you also start to lift weights. The bottom line is you prepare and build your physical fitness. This is the same thing you do with your mental health. You start a training program for your mental health. Maybe you start to work with a professional. Maybe you start to read books and work on your coping skills and techniques. Only when a mental health issue arises do people start to ‘train.’ This is where many people fall off.
And that’s okay. It happens. One of the biggest takeaways from this specific experience, which many many people have, is if possible, you want to have coping skills in your tool bag for when you need them. You do not want to have to learn how to use coping skills when you need them. Here’s another example. If you’re a firefighter, you should regularly be practicing how to use your fire hose. When a house is on fire, you should be able to pull out the hose to put out the fire. It shouldn’t be the first time you use a fire hose when you get called to put out the fire. You shouldn’t necessarily be learning how to use coping skills when your house is on fire. You should already know how to use those tools. If you don’t have those coping skills already, now is a good time to learn how to use them.
Back to the skill building and marathon training. Many people get frustrated when they do not see instant results in treatment. This is very similar to how people get frustrated when they do not see instant results from their marathon training. Again, it takes time to build your mental health skills. You don’t stop marathon training after a week or a month and say, “I’m not making progress fast enough so I quit.” You take a step back, assess the situation, and ask your coach or professional about the progress you are making in your training or treatment plan. You don’t flip a switch and the next thing you know, you’re a beast. Heck no!
Progress in Online Therapy for Physician Burnout
Here are a couple of examples of treatment progress in therapy.
A nurse froze during a code. Previously, my client would have chewed his ass out so hard the nurse would have resented working with my client. Now, my client framed the experience as a teaching moment and took the role of a mentor teaching a new nurse.
A client was having difficulty sleeping every night as his mind was processing his day. The client used his coping skills to process some of the emotions and experiences he was having to improve his sleep process.
A client was able to go from being unable to recognize what his emotions were to being able to name and express his emotions in a pro-social manner.
Though this may not be the ultimate goal for my clients, these are huge wins in my book. It may not seem big but this is what progress in treatment looks like. As a client, you don’t go from “I’m feeling like I’m depressed” to “I’m confident in my skills and abilities to handle my emotions” in 1 session, or 4 sessions, or months, or even years. Just like being able to run a marathon, it takes time and practice to get there. It doesn’t happen overnight. You have to be willing to put in the work and trust the process.
If it feels like you aren’t making any treatment progress or it isn’t fast enough for you, do some self-reflection and bring it up with your therapist. I’m sure you’ll have a great discussion about the work you’re doing. It’s very easy to downplay your progress when you are in the middle of the process. It can be easy to forget where you once started.
Reach out for Therapy for Physicians
When you’re ready to start therapy with Chris Rabanera, take the first steps with a free 15-minute consultation. I provide online therapy in California, online therapy in Michigan, online therapy in Nebraska, and online therapy in Las Vegas. As an experienced therapist, I specialize in physician burnout, grief counseling, anxiety, and depression. I also provide mental health treatment for men.
