Meeting-The-Challenge-Making-a-Difference-Practitioner-Guide

Some professions, like
counselling and
psychotherapy, require
trainees to have personal
therapy so that the person
has an opportunity to explore
their own issues and their
reaction to the work while
training. Some workplaces
offer access to a limited
number of sessions
of counselling every year to
employees. This can be a very
helpful way of ‘digesting’ the
challenges of your role.
Talking to friends or partners
outside work is not usually a
good idea if what is stressing
you is a particular client or
service user, because of the
need to respect the
confidentiality of the service
user. It is better to find
someone within your
workplace, who is bound by
the same rules as
confidentiality as you, a
friend, colleague or manager,
to discuss problems in relation
to a particular service user.
Wellbeing and burnout
If we feel supported by the team, managers, and the organisation
in which we work, this can be extremely rewarding work. However,
staff who feel unsupported or confused about what is expected
of them, or who feel that they are expected to do things for which
they are not equipped, can experience burnout.
Ask yourself the following questions to see whether you
might be suffering from burnout in relation to your work:
1) Do I feel run down, drained and exhausted, without any
obvious physical explanation like being unwell?
2) Do I get irritated with my colleagues and team for no
good reason?
3) Am I sometimes less sympathetic with service users than
I should be?
4) Do I talk about clients in a cynical or harsh way?
5) Am I feeling that there is more work to do than I can
possibly do?
‘Well-being’ is feeling energetic and committed to what we are
doing, and feeling that we get satisfaction from our work. When
we experience well-being, we usually have the energy to engage
in a helpful way with service users, colleagues, and the job that
needs to be done.
‘Burnout’, on the other hand, occurs when there is an expectation
of someone being involved in difficult work that is not matched by
them having a manageable workload or by them getting
appropriate support and supervision. Organisations which allow
staff to burn out are damaging not just for the staff member, but
will ultimately not be helpful for the service user.
If we as individuals, and the teams and organisations that we
work in, do not recognise how stressful the work is sometimes,
we may develop a particular set of defences to try and protect
ourselves from this stress. These defences are understandable,
and may assist us in the short term to feel better, but they do not
create a helpful and constructive work culture that is sensitive to
the needs of service users.
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