What Healthcare Professionals Need to Know About Trauma Therapy in Seattle
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Are you or someone you love a medical professional? You’ve likely heard the terms, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, burnout. Chances are you experienced one or all of these in the last few years. What part of your training taught you to manage the residual trauma you experience daily? What part of your training taught you how to manage a wide variety of personalities and build your communication skills? What part of your training promoted self-care? If you’re like most medical professionals I’ve worked with, the answer to these questions is ‘little to none.’ I specialize in treating medical trauma both with patients and medical professionals.
I Don’t Have Time for Therapy
Taking care of yourself will make you a better provider. You’ll have more capacity to problem solve, stay calm, and engage in decisive action. Your patients will have better outcomes. Think about sustainability. You can do anything for the short term until something changes and you no longer can keep going the same way you did. The impact of your work will eventually come up, in one way or another. You can get to choose how to let the fizz out of the coke bottle or wait for it to explode. This is usually when I hear from folks.
Types of Trauma Experienced by Medical Professionals
Vicarious Trauma results as a by-product of people working with and around traumatic incidences, stories and experiences. The emotional ‘junk’ that stays around long after dealing with the task at hand. The results are cumulative, as our nervous system can’t negate experiences that have happened. Experiences can only be added. You might notice you have trouble sleeping, you have nightmares about work, your appetite is off, your mood has changed, you’re more irritable, you struggle to make decisions. All of these can be symptoms of vicarious trauma. Today with increased gun violence, a pandemic, and a confusing insurance system, medical professionals are dealing with more than ever.
Compassion Fatigue can happen due to caring for another human or humans. It takes intentionality to be fully present and engaged with another human, especially one experiencing pain and suffering. Caring itself can drain you of your energy and lead you to feel a wide variety of emotions including but not limited to anger, sadness, irritability, volatility, and exhaustion. You may not recognize who you’ve become and may have lost sight of why you do what you do in the first place.
Burnout can happen in many areas of life, but especially within the medical profession because people tend to wear so many hats and be overwhelmed with work. In medicine more than any other profession, there is a strict hierarchy of rank. There is a culture of ‘earning your keep’ and proving yourself. Lack of sleep, long shifts and a lack of self-care are standard. You may feel physically and emotionally drained. Depending on your level, many healthcare workers are overworked and underpaid.
Misdiagnosis
A systemic view of a medical professional’s life is important to properly identify what is happening and not misdiagnosis one of the above phenomena on depression, anxiety, or another mental health disorder, although co-morbidity can occur.
Shame
There can be a lot of shame related to seeking therapy for medical professionals. It can be perceived as weak or unprofessional. This is bullshit. What better thing to do for yourself and your patients than to erect consistent practices to take care of yourself, process trauma, and be a more resilient human? I’d love for you think consider how your professional journey may have been different if addressing work trauma was addressed properly earlier in your career.
Same System
The same systemic oppression that impacts your clients and patients impacts you. Racism, anti-fat bias, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and more all play out within your workplaces and world. Such intersectional identifies can further traumatize you in a system that doesn’t prioritize your wellbeing. The higher you get in the hierarchy of medicine, the more white, cis-male it gets, making being in medicine as a minority that much more challenging.
What You Can Do
You can think of addressing medical trauma from work in two ways, firstly, immediately implementing tools that will help you increase stability and secondly, long term solutions and change. Of course, you’re keeping confidentiality in mind with all of these.
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In the Moment Tools
Breathing
Engaging your Senses
Talk to a Trusted Colleague
Debrief a tough case with a colleague
Journal, move, or do art at the end of the day to process emotions
Start a gratitude practice
Get in nature
Listen to music
Eat a healthy meal
Identify 3 things you did well that day
What We Can Do In Therapy
Build safety within your nervous system
Build psychological flexibility
Build resiliency
Process difficult emotions
Promote healthy communication
Promote healthy boundaries
Build supportive systems
Unlearn unhelpful coping techniques
Promote healthy relationships
You Deserve Better
What you do as a medical professional is an extremely valuable asset to your community. You deserve to be taken care of and celebrated. If you feel stressed, anxious, fearful, depressed or are unsure of the mental impacts your job has had on you, reach out and schedule a free consultation. I offer flexible online services and can work with your needs. Let’s start you on the road to peace and fulfillment.
Learn more about me here. Or check out my specialties: Infertility, pregnancy loss, medical trauma, anxiety, health issues, menopause, and grief. Or return back to the blog.