Having Fun and Self-care by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., Ph

January 2022

     Many years ago now, I was asked by a trainer in one of my classes when I was learning to be a psychotherapist what I did for fun. This seemingly frivolous question is actually extremely important. Unless we therapists can enjoy our recreation and have fun, our professional lives are very short. The burn-out rate among therapists is very high. About half have to leave the profession because of mental exhaustion, which leaves many open to debilitating breakdown in emotional and physical health, and relationships. Those that press on without relief, experience high rates of depression, feelings of depersonalization and cynicism which naturally impacts on the quality of the therapeutic relationship itself. This problem, of course, isn’t just confined to psychotherapists; all of us in the helping professions can be affected by burn-out: a fact now being especially highlighted by the ongoing effects of the covid19 pandemic.

      I’ve written about the need for therapists to receive regular clinical supervision and personal therapy, if that is desired, and I may have mentioned that we really do need to maintain membership of a professional psychological and/or counselling organization in which professional ethics are paramount, and the required  adjunct professional liability insurance to keep us on track and provide a safety net in the unlikely event of a client deciding  to sue us, but what I want to write about in this article is not what happens when we press on beyond our personal limits, but return the focus to fun and a happy means of creative letting go. Without a pressure valve, all of us simply wear out.

      Those of us who are continuing to work effectively enjoy our lives, and our relationship with clients is benefitted. All the successful therapists I know integrate self-care into their daily lives. Some of these people have been in the profession for a very long time. A mentor of mine, a psychologist with over fifty years experience, lives and works in Fremantle, Western Australia and rides his bicycle at 3am in the morning,  swims in the ocean, and does qi gong. This man is one of the funniest, and most relaxed human beings I know. He is also one of the best therapists around. I do some professional development with him fortnightly.

      My friend and colleague in Germany, and a specialist in drug and alcohol counselling, walks in nature beside the River Rhine with his little dog bounding in the waters beside him. He, like my mentor, is a really funny, playful guy. These therapists are  compassionate, generous, clear minded, direct, intelligent, knowledgeable and very skilful in what they do with clients, fellow therapists, and everybody else. Salt of the earth, you could say.

    Other therapist friends dance, play the didgeridoo in the forest - listening for an echo – fish from boats out at sea, surf, garden, cook, sew tapestries, create paintings. They are nourished in engagements and they integrate playing into their ordinary, and thus extraordinary lives.

      What do I do for fun? I love the water. I swim, snorkel, dive (free and scuba), kayak and all that lovely watery stuff. I have a large selection of fins, for all kinds of activities (I’m an Emelda Marcos of swim fins!) I’ve even added deep water aerobics to the mix; an activity that makes me laugh. There’s something intrinsically very silly about comporting oneself through the water with hands held above one’s head or propelling oneself like some water beetle or small lizard flat out swimming, or engaging in deep water running, or any of the other sometimes challenging exercises It’s play, with a purpose. The beauty of it all is that when I’m doing it, I am only doing it. This is really important because when I’m doing therapy I only need to be doing therapy. My presence, body and mind, needs to be entirely on the therapeutic endeavour. If I were to work beyond my own psychological capacity, without respite, I know that I would be joining the 50% of exhausted therapists who, by rights, shouldn’t be working at all.

     And so, I swim, laugh, play

 

 

 

All the waters of the world by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns, PhD

December 2020

     Most people who know me know that my passion is swimming, snorkelling, and diving. Just being in the water is bliss. These days, it feels to me that all the pools, ponds, lakes, rivers, seas and oceans I have ever swum in are gathered together in the singular swim of the day. It is as though all the waters of the world are present in the now of this swim.

     I have swum in the North Sea (Scotland, England, the Adriatic (off Italy),  the Andaman (off Thailand), the Indian and Southern Oceans (Western Australia), Fonty’s Pool, Manjimup (WA south-west),  in the Pacific, the Atlantic (Iceland) multiple rivers, streams, lakes (including Lake Zurich in Switzerland), the Silfra Fissure in Lake Thingvallavatn in Iceland (water temperature, 3-4 degrees Celsius); hotel and public pools (last year I was in Berlin swimming in their pool on top of a shopping centre, and Caracalla Spa in Baden-Baden), etc.,  etc. I actually dream of swimming across whole countrysides, and it feels fantastic. 

   One thing I love to do when diving, is swim upside down gazing at the underside of the shimmering water’s surface. I’ve had dive masters try to save me, thinking I’m drowning! This, I guess, is the legacy of nearly drowning when I was four years old. That time, I wasn’t yet a strong swimmer and couldn’t follow the group of swimmers who left me behind, so was going under. Far from being afraid, however, I was fascinated by the underside of the surface of the water with the light streaming through. It was magical. I was pretty cross on being saved and told to play on the beach like the other little kids. I guess the reason I didn’t drown was the children’s capacity for stilling the breath, something I consciously practice these days.

     I have a hankering to free dive the kelp forests off Tasmania, and plan on doing this in the next couple of months. I bought the useful extra long free diving fins and added them to my existing rather large fin collection (I’m the Imelda Marcos of swim fins).  My Octopus Teacher, that beautiful documentary made by Craig Foster on the way in which an octopus taught the man about octopus-life, has added fuel to this desire. The dance of waving kelp seduces me.

     So, what has this all to do with psychotherapy? Far from being a remotely connected idea, understanding what being in water requires and understanding what being in the presence of other people in the psychotherapeutic realm necessitates, gives a very clear pointer to how the one reflects the other. 

     Being in the water and working with clients requires in-the-moment attention; it requires focus, listening, awareness of everything around me, and all done while alert and yet relaxed. The nature of both and all the interconnections within is an imperative of the therapeutic communication. 

     It is no accident that water is often seen as the essence of communication, a word that shares its meaning with “communal”, or “togetherness”. Sound travels long distances in water. A microphone dropped beneath a boat captures whale song of those swimming many metres away.

     In astronomy, Sedna, the planetary body beyond Neptune, was named after the Inuit goddess of marine life. She, or it, in this romance, usefully could symbolize the coming of  consciousness from a backdrop of watery unconsciousness. This is our task in psychotherapy, and in life. It’s also what I endeavour to do while swimming, that is, swimming with awareness.

     Water is subtle in her currents, shifts in water temperature, clarity or murkiness, volume (it took awhile to perceive in my body depth perception), the delicate sense of water tension, and the strange way in which the swimmer can sometimes forget that there is a watery substance, but just the natural environment of the marine animal. Swimming the waters of the world is how I’m coming to know how interconnection, individuation and consciousness all roll into the doing of participation in the art, craft and process of psychotherapy. I swim for the enjoyment of coming to know my work, my life.