Therapy for Therapists
As therapists, we spend our working lives attending to other people. It is easy to let our own needs slip in the process.
I work with therapists and other clinicians in their own therapy. Caring for our own mental health matters, both for our well-being and for the work we do. If you have been carrying more than usual, or you know it is time to take the advice you give your clients, I would be glad to talk.
Therapists Need Support Too
Therapists face the same personal challenges and stresses as anyone else, and we can benefit from psychotherapy just as our clients do. Our work also brings pressures of its own: holding healthy professional boundaries, managing difficult client situations, and absorbing what we hear session after session.
Whether or not your practice is trauma-focused, you are regularly exposed to trauma, and secondary and vicarious trauma are real hazards of the profession. Your own therapy is a place to tend to that.
Your Own Therapy Strengthens Your Clinical Work
Being in therapy ourselves deepens our work with clients. It gives us room to explore and manage countertransference, and it increases our capacity to connect authentically with the people we serve.
As we come to understand and accept our own vulnerabilities, we may become better able to relate to what our clients are experiencing and bring greater empathy and self-awareness into our work. Personal growth and professional growth are hard to separate, and therapy supports both.
Practicing What We Teach
Many of us teach mindfulness to clients. Fewer of us practice it ourselves. Yet mindfulness is one of the most accessible tools we have for managing stress and supporting emotional well-being.
For clinicians who spend much of the day attuned to someone else's emotional experience, mindfulness can create intentional space to notice our own. Staying with the present moment and meeting our experience without judgment can ease feelings of overwhelm. Breathwork, body scans, and guided meditation fit easily between sessions and can help us ground and center ourselves.
EMDR From the Client's Chair
Many therapists have not considered Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for themselves, but it can be a powerful way to address the impact of trauma exposure in our profession.
For clinicians familiar with EMDR professionally, experiencing the process from the client's chair can also offer a different perspective on the work.
Spirituality in Your Life and Your Practice
Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy (SIP) is at the heart of my practice. I am trained and experienced in this holistic approach.
Our field increasingly recognizes that spiritual experience matters. Religious and spiritual beliefs and practices can be real resources for healing and growth, yet many therapists feel uncomfortable or unsure about how to make room for a client's spirituality or attend to their spiritual injuries.
A good place to begin is with ourselves. Exploring our own sense of meaning, and the spiritual or religious resources that sustain us, can make it more natural to welcome those parts of our clients' lives.
I welcome the chance to help colleagues become more at ease bringing this important part of life into their work.
Healing Spiritual and Moral Injury
I also offer therapy to heal from spiritual and moral injuries, particularly those that come from painful experiences in a religious community.
Working together, you can reconnect with your own capacity for meaning, spiritual awareness, and personal growth. Through SIP, I have also helped clients explore healthier religious or spiritual communities where they can experience belonging, support, and safety.
Along the way, you may find, as many of us therapists do, that helping others is a key part of what makes your own life meaningful.
Making Self-Care a Priority
Balancing work and personal life is important for reducing the risk of burnout and sustaining a fulfilling career. Consistent self-care routines that include physical activity, mindfulness practice, and regular therapy sessions can provide meaningful support. Setting healthy boundaries and seeking peer support also help protect our emotional health and professional effectiveness.
Making Room for Your Own Therapy
We are used to being the ones who provide support and guidance. Seeking help for ourselves is not a sign of weakness. It reflects a commitment to our own personal and professional growth.
I am a trauma-informed, holistically oriented psychotherapist with experience helping fellow clinicians with healing, personal growth, and support.
If you are ready to make room for your own healing, growth, and self-care, I invite you to reach out. Call me at 845-202-9774 or use the contact form to schedule a conversation. Together, we can explore what you need from therapy when you are usually the person sitting in the other chair.
Curious if this feels like the right fit?
I invite you to start with a consultation. There is no pressure, just a conversation to see whether working together makes sense.