"Beware the Occupational Hazards"

As apathy, boredom, discontentment, and lack of concern have become common place for me of late, I am learning to embrace one word- burnout. It has been a process to accept that I am in this state of being currently, but I can say unashamedly that I am tired of class, tired of studying, tired of writing papers, tired of jumping through unneccessary hoops to gain a diploma, tired of clients, tired of paperwork, tired of nannying, tired of boring babies, tired of it all. Blah.

It is time for a fresh new start. I am re-discovering myself in a way as I attempt to maintain sanity in the midst of this all and balance life so that I do not lose focus completely, but at least have a minimal grasp on reality. And a grasp on the big picture and purpose of why I am doing what I am doing. For moments I have lost sight of why I am getting a degree to become a counselor for a career. It takes too much work, it is indescribably draining, and sometimes it totally sucks.

One of many things that has rekindled inspiration for me is reading Irvin Yalom's book The Gift of Therapy. To me it is a book of wisdom, little snippets of things that this seasoned therapist has learned in the last several decades of counseling that he wants to pass on to the next generation of therapists. It is rich in wisdom and depth. As I read the last two chapters (which are all only about 1-4 pages), I felt some clarity to what I have been enduring as well as what I am going to endure, but also the purpose as to why I am pursuing this degree, this field, this career. Sometimes I ponder to myself or outloud that all I do is listen and occasionally talk all day, but feel that I have never been listened to myself, never been able to conversate, and never had an intimate exchange with another human being on my terms. This excerpt speaks for me:

"Beware the Occupational Hazards"
"The cozy setting of psychotherapy practice-comfortable armchairs, tasteful furnishings, gentle words, the sharing, the warmth, the intimate engagement-often obscures the occupational hazards. Psychotherapy is a demanding vocation, and the successful therapist must be able to tolerate the isolation, anxiety, and frustration that are inevitable in the work.
What a paradox it is that psychotherapists, who so cherish their patients' pursuit of intimacy, should experience isolation as a major professional hazard. Yet therapists too often are solitary creatures, spending all their working day cloistered in one-to-one sessions and rarely seeing colleagues unless they make a strenuous effort to build collegial activities into their life. Yes, of course, the therapist's workaday one-to-one sessions are drenched in intimacy, but it is a form of intimacy insufficient to support the therapist's life, an intimacy that does not provide the nourishment and renewal that emanate from deep, loving relationships with friends and family. It is one thing to be for the other, but quite another thing to be in relationships that are equally for oneself and the other.
Too often, we therapists neglect our personal relationships. Our work becomes our life. At the end of the workday, having given so much of ourselves, we feel drained of desire for more relationship. Besides, patients are so grateful, so adoring, so idealizing, we therapists run the risk of becoming less appreciative of family members and friends, who fail to recognize our omniscience and excellence in all things. [I would like to insert a Dulcy comment here...Perhaps it's because I am a new counselor, but I have yet to feel thanked, adored, or idealized. Maybe somday!]
The therapist's worldview is in itself isolating. Seasoned therapists view relationships differently, they sometimes lose patience with social ritual and bureaucracy, they cannot abide the fleeting shallow encounters and small talk of many social gatherings. While traveling, some therapists avoid contact with others or conceal their profession because they are put off by the public's distorted responses towards them. They are weary not only of being irrationally feared or devaluated but of being overvaulated and deemed capable of mind-reading or of rendering curbstone solutions to mulitfarious problems." (page 251-252)

I realize that this is long, but bare with me because I feel it rings so clearly and truly for what I experience now as an intern and what I will likely experience for my lifetime as a counselor. Those negatives are not without a positive, so please now understand where I am coming from when I think of myself as having the best job in the world...

"Cherish the Occupational Privileges"
"I rarely hear my therapist colleagues complain that their lives lack meaning. Life as a therapist is a life of service in which we daily transcend our personal wishes and turn our gaze toward the needs and growth of the other. We take pleasure not only in the growth of our patient but also in the ripple effect- the salutory influence our patients have upon those whom they touch in life.
there is extraordinary privilege here. And extraordinary satisfaction, too.
In the preceding discussion of professional hazards I described the arduous, never-ending self-scrutiny and inner work required by our profession. But that very requirement is more privilege than burden because it is an inbuilt safeguard against stagnation. The active therapist is always evolving, continuously growing in self-knowledge and awareness. How can one possibly guide others in an examination of deep structures of mind and existence without simultanesouly examining oneself? Nor is it possible to ask a patient to focus upon interpersonal relatedness without examining one's own modes of relating.
We are cradlers of secrets. Every day patients grace us with their secrets, often never before shared. Receiving such secrets is a privilege given to very few. The secrets provide a backstage view of the human condition without social frills, role playing, bravado, or stage posturing. Sometimes the secrets scorch me and I go home and hold my wife and count my blessings. Other secrets pulsate within me and arouse my own fugitive, long-forgotten memories and impulses. Still others sadden me as I witness how an entire life can be needlessly consumed by shame and the inability to forgive onself.
Those who are cradlers of secrets are granted a clarifying lens through which to view the world-a view with less distortion, and illusion, a view of the way things really are.
Not only does our work provide us the opportunity to transcend ourselves, to evolve and to grow, and to be blessed by clarity of vision into the true and tragic knowledge of the human condition, but we are offered even more.
We are intellectually challenged. We become explorers immersed in the grandest and most complex of pursuits-the development and maintenance of the human mind. Hand in hand with patients, we savor the pleasure of great discoveries-the "aha" experience when disparate ideational fragments suddenly slide smoothly together into coherence. At other times we are the midwife to the birth of something new, liberating, and elevating.
Last, it has always struck me as an extraordinary privilege to belong to the venerable and honorable guild of healers. We therapists are a part of a tradition reaching back not only to our immediate psychotherapy ancestors, beginning with Freud and Jung and all of their ancestors but also to Jesus, the Buddha, Plato, Socrates, Galen, Hippocrates, and all the other great religious leaders, philosophers, and physicians who have, since the beginning of time, ministered to human despair." (256-259)

This is ridiculously long, but it makes a lot of sense to me and hopefully sheds light to all you who see me becoming a counselor. Sorry for typos. I have to do a study guide and get to class in less than an hour.