Most therapists enter their profession because they want to help other people. They are caring and altruistic, and their focus is on making other people’s lives better. But it’s quite true that you “can’t pour from an empty vessel”. Self-care for hypnotherapists is important if you want to protect your emotional and physical health.
It’s important to apply some of the good advice you give your clients to yourself as well. To ensure that your emotional and physical health is as good as possible. As every airline tells you, put your own oxygen mask on first. Then you’re in a fit state to help others.
Do you do that, or do you feel guilty about doing things for yourself? Be honest, now!
Why Self Care Matters for Therapists
John Duffy, PhD is a clinical psychologist and author of The Available Parent: Radical Optimism for Raising Teens and Tweens. He defined self-care as “attending to your own needs such that you are content, focused, motivated, and ‘on your game.’” That goes for therapists as well as parents.
Therapists can care just too much (see my other blog on why your empathy can get you down) and are at risk of burnout. Burnout basically means you are so overloaded emotionally that you simply can’t cope any more.
At the other end of the scale, therapists can cope by compartmentalising so much that they don’t empathise with clients at all. As in any job dealing with people in distress, a bit of detachment is necessary. You guard against becoming so caught up in your client’s point of view that you can’t help them see things differently.
But too much detachment is counter-productive.
Self care helps you avoid both of these extremes, staying empathetic and engaged without becoming overwhelmed.
Your self-care routine should look at two main areas: your physical health and your emotional health. Here are our top tips for each area.
Emotional self-care for hypnotherapists
What can go wrong
However much you enjoy working with your clients, listening to people’s problems can be emotionally draining at times. There’s a risk you take them home with you.
You don’t live in a vacuum. There may be challenging situations at home that have an impact on your emotional health and your ability to cope with work.
You can put so much of yourself into your work that you don’t have time for yourself. Working evenings and weekends to suit clients can have an impact on your family and social life.
There is also a danger that you begin to measure your worth by how much you do for other people. You may feel that taking time off is selfish, or that saying no means you are letting your clients down.
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What you should do
Setting boundaries with therapy clients
- Set specific hours during which you are available to clients, and be strict with yourself.
- Have a separate phone for work which you switch off every day. If someone genuinely can’t attend during your usual client hours, consider adding an “out of hours” fee to your usual price.
- Know your limits. It’s also OK to say no sometimes, at work and at home. That might mean referring on a client you don’t feel is a good fit, or asking someone else to clean the house or walk the dog.
- Let clients know under what circumstances, and how, they should contact you between therapy sessions. Needing to change or cancel an appointment is obviously OK, but daily updates, calls and questions, unless you have agreed to this as part of the therapy, are too much.
- If frequent between-session contact is part of your therapy, make sure you factor it into your working hours and hourly rates. Otherwise, you may gradually find that you are providing more support than you have agreed to. That can impact your time for yourself and the number of unpaid hours you’re putting in.
Supervision, support and compassion fatigue
- Get support. Peer support groups and/or a good supervisor will offer support about work issues without confidentiality problems. Making the effort to keep in touch with friends will help with the personal stuff.
- A good supervisor or support group can be there for you through your victories, moments of doubt and personal crises. We’re people as well as therapists, and we all have these.
- It’s OK to cut back on your hours if there’s lots going on at home. This sort of freedom is probably one of the reasons you became self-employed in the first place.
Physical self-care for therapists
What can go wrong
Therapy is often a sedentary job. You sit most of the day listening to clients, unless you are sitting at your desk writing up notes, doing the accounts or posting on your social media pages. Some therapists have introduced “walking therapy” to their practice, but if you’re a hypnotherapist, that’s unlikely to be practical.
Therapists often work out of hours – evenings and weekends – to accommodate clients, and then snatch meals at odd hours or grab a takeaway “because it’s easier”.
If you work from home, it can be particularly easy to move from your therapy chair to your desk, and then perhaps to the sofa, without getting much physical movement into your day. There is also no natural journey home to create a break between work and personal life.
What you should do
- Make sure you exercise regularly. If you don’t work from home, park a bit further away and walk in; join a gym, yoga class or sports club; play in the park with your kids; or take the stairs instead of the lift if your therapy room is not on the ground floor.
- Get up and move around between clients. Do a few stretches or go for a short walk if there is time. Even a brief change of position can help break up a day spent sitting down.
- Eat a healthy diet. Planning and preparing meals in advance can help, or make a rota so other family members cook for you. Try not to rely on takeaways simply because your working hours make it difficult to prepare food.
- Monitor your smoking, alcohol intake and any other unhealthy tendencies. Therapists are not immune from using unhealthy habits to cope with stress.
- Monitor yourself regularly for signs of burnout and STS, or secondary traumatic stress. Use the stress-busting techniques you teach your clients (see this article for more information).
It’s also worth remembering that self-care does not have to be elaborate. A short walk around the block, playing with your children or dog, or taking ten minutes away from your desk may be enough to give your body and mind a useful break.
How to build a self-care routine
- Make time for you. Engage in activities that you enjoy every week and schedule regular family time in your diary.
- Take time out for a bubble bath or to meditate. Read a book, watch “mindless” television, chat to your partner or friends, or do something else that helps you switch off.
- Quality of self-care can be more important than quantity. Even ten minutes with a book, playing with your children or dog, chatting to your partner or friends, or walking around the block can help boost your emotional batteries.
- Use relaxation techniques regularly. It’s always good to use the self-care methods you give your clients, but for some therapists this can overlap too closely with work.
- For example, I often find myself analysing someone’s voice and delivery if I listen to a relaxation audio, although my clients love the ones I give them. If that’s you as well, look for alternatives. You might benefit more from going for a massage, taking a swim, listening to music or spending time outdoors
- Don’t be the worst boss you have ever had! If you worked for someone else, you would probably have around four weeks’ holiday a year. Take holidays from your therapy business too, even if you don’t go away. Don’t be tempted to answer work calls or emails while you are on leave. It’s what vacation responses and answerphones are for.
- Your clients will usually manage while you are unavailable, especially if they have been told in advance and have been given appropriate information about what to do if they need urgent help.
- Get organised. Use time-management strategies so you know what you can realistically take on and what you should either hire someone else to do or turn down. You can find more ideas in this article about time management.
It’s worth asking whether every task really has to be done by you. Sometimes paying someone else to do a job is not a luxury; it’s a practical way of protecting your time and energy. Outsource time-consuming jobs or the ones you don’t enjoy. For example, when I went full time, I hired a cleaner. Two extra client hours per month, which I enjoy more than cleaning, pays her wage.
How to put self-care routines in place
If you haven’t been doing any self-care at all, you don’t need to integrate all these ideas into your life overnight. As you probably tell your clients, it can be hard to make too many changes at once. Then you end up giving up the whole thing in disgust and not making any changes at all.
Start with one idea, or one from each section. Pick the one that looks easiest to get you going.
That might be scheduling a proper lunch, taking a short walk between clients, switching off your work phone at a set time or booking a regular day off.
Put it in place now. Once the new habit is established, choose and add another idea, until you are in a routine that supports and nourishes you.
You could even make it one of your New Year’s resolutions to improve your self care. If you’re reading this at any other time of year, pick a date and make a resolution anyway.
Each month, add another habit or improve the ones you already have. For example, take fifteen minutes a day for yourself instead of ten.
Self-care is not something you need to earn by looking after everybody else. It is being confident that you are taking care of yourself as well as you take care of your clients.
Feel free to download our FREE Self-Care Checklist to keep you on track.
About Debbie Waller
Blog Author Debbie Waller is a hypnotherapist, supervisor, and trainer with more than twenty years of experience. As well as having a busy client practice, she runs Yorkshire Hypnotherapy Training and writes books and articles for therapists who want to deepen their knowledge and develop effective practice.
Disclaimer
The information and ideas shared on this blog are based on the author’s professional experience, research, and training. They are intended for educational purposes and to support reflection and professional development. Therapists should always apply their own professional judgment and consider the needs of individual clients when using any techniques or suggestions discussed here.
While every effort is made to ensure the information is accurate and helpful, no responsibility can be accepted for any loss, damage, or difficulties arising from the use or misuse of material contained in these articles.
