Counselors as Clients Presentation Notes

Counselors as Clients: An Exploration of Personal Counseling

Dr. Imhoff's experience with social anxiety and counseling:
- Diagnosed in 2012.
- Discussed in Counseling Today article.
Jeff's perspective as a student:
- Realizing professors are human and may have their issues.
Creation of a CSI chapter at Liberty for online students.
Podcast episode on pursuing personal counseling needs.
Presentation as a result of personal experiences and self-discovery.
Humility and self-awareness gained through counseling experiences.

20 years in a high-stress consulting engineering field.
Experienced burnout and destructive behaviors to cope.
Counseling led to a career change to professional counseling.
The importance of self-care.
Mental health counseling as a one-way culture.
- Daily pouring out of empathy and compassion without expecting anything in return from clients.
- Double-edged sword: vulnerability to stressors and burnout.

Study by Simpson et al. (2018) of 434 clinical psychologists and counselors:
- Stressors impacted performance for 79% of participants.
- Over 18% experienced significant or severe burnout.
- Approximately 84% experienced some type of burnout.

Maslach and Jackson (1981): Burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion and cynicism that occurs frequently among individuals in the "people work prevention profession."
Term first used by Herbert Freudenberger in 1974.
Burnout can affect both practicing counselors and counselors in training.
Common causes:
- External: Environmental factors related to work demands (e.g., excess caseload, lack of resources, juggling school/work/family for counselors in training).
- Internal: Personal-related factors (e.g., imbalance, coping mechanisms, fear of failure, fear of letting others down).

Emotional exhaustion: Depletion of resources.
Depersonalization: Cynical attitude toward clients, lack of empathy.
Lack of personal accomplishment: Feeling of incompetence.
Diminishment of self-efficacy: Belief that one cannot accomplish goals.
Early maladaptive schemas: Childhood histories affecting beliefs or coping mechanisms.
- Unrelenting standards: Belief that one must strive for an unattainable goal.
- Self-sacrifice: Belief that one must do things for others, feeling guilty if not.

Decreased level of care.
Potential harm to clients (unethical issue).
Job turnover and absenteeism, low morale.
Personal issues: Trouble sleeping, stress, linked to drug and alcohol abuse, marriage and family issues, relationship issues, significant health issues.
Depression, suicide, loss of license.
Exponential growth of burnout studies since the 1970s.
Ethical duty to ensure we're not causing harm to clients; emphasizes the importance of self-care.

Pouring into oneself to have the fullness to pour out onto others.
Holistic well-being and a reflection of attitude.
Direct correlation with burnout.
ACA Code of Ethics: Counselors required to engage in self-care activities.
Self-care paradox: Counselors understand the importance of self-care but don't believe it applies to them.

Awareness: Ability to monitor one's own needs and balance.
Balance: Maintaining equilibrium in personal and professional realms.
Flexibility: Ability to adapt to situations. Perfectionism increases chances of burnout.
Physical health: Sleep, exercise, diet.
Social support: Connections with family, friends, supervision. Isolation is a major risk factor.
Spirituality: Meaningfulness, being part of something greater than oneself, gratitude, thanksgiving, meaning-making.
Intentionality and planning required to prioritize self-care.

Approximately 80% of professional counselors will attend counseling.
44% of counseling students.
38% of general Americans.
Reasons for attending counseling (Stevens et al., 2019):
- Family concerns, sadness, loss, hopelessness, feeling on edge, worried, intimate relationships.
Reasons for not attending counseling:
- Lack of time, “I can deal with this on my own,” having the ability to access resources.

Raised as an only child from divorced parents.
Entered seminary at age 17 to study to be a Roman Catholic priest.
Lived as a monk in the South Bronx for four years.
Began counseling due to exhaustion, anxiety, depression, hyper-vigilance, control issues, low self-worth, distorted images of God, OCD symptoms, and terrible self-care.
Left the seminary and moved into a retreat center for priests and religious for 11 months.
Counselor used theories of Anna Terruwe and Conrad Baars, who applied a rational philosophical approach to Freudian ideas about repression.
Learned to guide emotions rationally instead of suppressing them.
Mixed-up emotions and suppressed religious practices led to a sense of dichotomous thinking.
Social isolation and narcissism due to the heart's cry for attention and love.
Needed to unlearn what he had learned about his emotional life.
Psychic rebirth through counseling, with the counselor stepping into the void.

Experiencing the role of the client.
Increases conviction that counseling works.
Improves personal and relational dynamics.
- Personal: Self-awareness of issues, accountability, raised self-esteem, check motivations.
- Relational: Increases empathy and authenticity.

Change of role, from caregiver or teacher to being cared for.
Opportunity to process personal lives uniquely.
Unique empathy from someone who also does that job.
Combating stigma by discussing issues openly.
Reminds you of client vulnerability, promotes competence, emotional intelligence, etc.

Time and busyness.
Ego: Belief that one should be able to figure things out alone.
Reaching out for help is not a weakness.
Perception of helpfulness: Doubting whether it will really work.
Credentials and fit: Find a counselor that can relate to you on a personal level.
Stigma.
Location (rural area).
Fear of isolation, lack of adequate resources.
Spiritual bypass
Cost.

Intentionality.
Advocacy.
Partnership.
- Between the school and educators from a supervision, a curriculum standpoint.
- The professional identity in the industry being able to provide services for those counselors that may not be able to afford it.