Depression Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Affinity Psychological Services

Mental Health Professionals Need Help, Too

Mental health professionals are the ultimate caregivers. You hold space for so many different people in a given week. You create and maintain the container that gives individuals a safe space for expressing some of the worst things that have ever happened to them. It is magical, important work.

It is also very hard. Working in this field can be draining. You have all of your own countertransference, emotions, and parallel processing going on as you work with each client. Although the relationship is important, you rarely self-disclose. Certainly, you don’t burden your client with the complicated emotions that arise for you during their work. Holding all of that inside is both a beautiful gift you offer your clients and it is a weight you carry within you.

It’s tempting to feel like you have to have it all together. Or to put your feelings in a box. In fact, you might get stuck precisely because you have so much training in professional counseling. You justify and analyze your feelings because of that training, but you may not allow yourself to really feel and work through the deeper emotions.

How Therapy Differs from Supervision

Sometimes as mental health providers we assume that we’re getting our needs taken care of even though we aren’t. One common trap is believing that because you have a supervisor, you don’t need your own therapist. A supervisor helps you work through the emotional and logistical challenges that arise with each of your own clients. That’s very important. However, it simply doesn’t take the place of professional counseling.

Sometimes the issues you’re struggling with are directly related to your clients. Sometimes they have nothing to do with your clients at all. Oftentimes, it’s a murky combination of the two, as you get triggered by clients when things come up related to your own past or present life. Working with a professional therapist allows you to address all of those aspects of yourself in a way that supervision does not.

Don’t Struggle Alone; Get Professional Counseling Today

We understand that it’s not always easy for mental health professionals to seek out their own support. It might feel like you know too much about “what goes on under the hood” to benefit from working with a therapist. However, here you are reading this page, knowing deep inside that it isn’t true. That you, too, want to benefit from that same gift you give your clients every day you go to work.

We can work with you to get past some of the walls that might be up as a direct result of your therapeutic training. We can help you get to the heart of the matter, so that your own beating heart can pump vibrantly once again. Contact us today to learn more about how we can approach therapy to improve your anxiety or depression.

Being creative doesn’t mean you are required to suffer. As a creative person, you are flexible enough to maneuver well in many situations, but you can also feel isolated and lonely. Other people may expect you to be fanciful, but you have a serious side that sees problems before you focus on solving them.

The Trouble with Being Creative

It may be difficult for others to understand you as a creative person because you are different people during different stages of your work. Sometimes, you’re so in the flow that the rest of your life seems to fall away as you concentrate your time and energy on your newest creation. This can lead to relationship difficulties. If you try to change to please others, you’re shortchanging yourself. If you refuse, you may lose a relationship with someone who needs a more involved partner.

The world can be cruel to those who are different, especially if they are too different.

Sometimes, you may feel as if your ideas are ahead of your time and that if you could only push the clock ahead twenty or so years, you would be able to find people who understood your point of view. You question how you managed to arrive there ahead of the pack. Maybe you question whether you are ahead of the pack or deluding yourself about what you perceive so clearly. Perhaps you criticize yourself or your work.

If you see too far or diverge too far from the well-traveled paths, the world might reject you and your work. Being in good company and remembering other people the world vilified before their genius was recognized doesn’t soothe you because it doesn’t close the gap between the possibilities you see and the world most of humanity sees as reality.

The uncomplicated bliss you experience when you’re working on a project that is going well calls to you. It is easy to enjoy work more than other areas of your life. But when its time to take a break, or a project is completed, loneliness sets in if you’ve let your relationships fall away or never created them in the first place.

Appreciating Your Accomplishments and Talents When You’re a Creative Person

Recognizing the magnitude of your accomplishments and strengths can often be difficult if you’re a creative person. You might not even derive much enjoyment from them. Whether you are an artist or a researcher, you are aware of the effort generations put in to build the platform you’re working on, which can make your life’s work seem small in comparison to what countless others created before you built upon their work. You’re focused on what you’re going to do next, not what you’ve already accomplished. This can also make you underestimate your own contributions. If you don’t see your own value, you can feel as if you’re not achieving as much as you want to achieve and become even more self-critical.

Seeing the world you’re creating so clearly can create a disconnect between you and those who don’t yet see the creation. Life can feel lonely, and relationships can feel difficult. How do you be as magnificent as you can be without being so different from others that you end up feeling isolated and alone? Is there a way to allow yourself to be so different without suffering?

The Most Difficult Problems to Solve Can Be the Closest to Home

When we artistically or scientifically create new worlds, we’re focused on solutions to problems. Creatives know that solutions never come from studying the problem—they come from deciding what would be better and finding ways to shift the world towards the solution. When something up close and personal isn’t the way we’d like it to be, almost everyone focuses on the problem. The problem is just too vivid to see solutions, especially when we’re mired in a personal situation that matters to us. Thus, finding that perspective on our own, when it is our life that has the problem, can be difficult.

How Therapy Can Be Part of the Solution

When the problem is slamming us in multiple ways every day, it can seem large and insurmountable. A therapist is an outsider looking in who can see a bigger picture and then help you put the issues in perspective, so they feel more manageable.

At Affinity, we help you use your strengths and a positive, life-affirming focus to address problems. Because we know that with the right perspective, you can find solutions. Let’s get creative together. Read more about how depression treatment can help you with your creativity or contact us today.

Mental Health Professionals