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

 

 

 

Care goes both ways by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M.Couns., PhD

July 2020

     It’s nice being warm. Too much of my life I’ve had the silly idea that I have to be brave, brave enough to bear the cold, and as I think on this, I realize that with that idea came a tendency not to discard things, just in case I’ll need them later on. How are these two ideas connected, I wonder?

     My mother was Russian-Estonian and half my family are Russian-Estonian, with a tendency to hoard and hold things close to ourselves as though to protect against the cold, all the while bravely putting on a firm resolve to walk hard against the iciness in light clothing. I saw it in my Estonian aunt and my cousins a few years ago on a visit my brother and I did to that part of the world in their winter. They all had that glint in the eye of resolve.

     I watched them put their walking clothes on and it seemed to me that they were not really dressed for snow and ice – and it was freezing out there, but out we’d go, and begin walking, fast. We walked in the snow fields, past the ski jumps; we hurried past the kindly lit, and probably warm, cabins; we just kept on walking. I, in a very familiar way, held in my shivers, and just sought to keep up.

     So here I sit now, snug in new trackie pants and in awe of warm legs. Who would’ve thought! Interestingly, but not so much, in light of my growing awareness, this comes amidst a house clearing where boxes of things and papers have been cast into bins and given away. The family psyche is getting a clean out.

     How many other familiarly held ideas do we have, behaviours, cultural ideas, just the stuff we traditionally do, that take years of shedding? It’s a useful exercise doing what I’m doing now, writing down the little bursts of insight. I had never put together the two ideas described above, till now, sitting, as I am, feeling cozy and warm.

    I’ve written frequently about the importance of connections with one another for good mental health, but now I want to talk about the importance of connecting with oneself. Doing this is ultimately caring for oneself. Christianity only gives lip service to this in the phrase, ‘Love thy neighbour as thy self’, because they also talk a lot about selfless giving. Buddhism, on the other hand, recognizes that the idea of compassion includes oneself in the act of having compassion towards others. Loving is giving and receiving at once in a crux of connection.

      What do I mean ‘connecting with oneself’? Aren’t we ourselves whatever we do? This is true, we are ourselves whatever we do, but much of what we do is out of awareness and we frequently react to certain things, things other people say, or situations, with feral aggression and blind self-hatred.  If we are going to be kind to ourselves, we’ll need to understand ourselves better and be less reactive. Me, being cold in winter, and quietly and interiorly shivering is me not being sufficiently conscious of the indoctrination of my family-borne idea that suffering is good and natural. I am not the suffering of impoverished Russia and downtrodden Estonia, I deserve warmth.

     Connecting fully to oneself is emerging through the fog of disconnection and being able to choose wisely who else to connect with. Again, this is something I am still learning about and in learning, I am better able to pick my causes as well as my connections.

     Many people think that looking after oneself is selfish and uncaring towards others. Nothing could be further from the truth. Self-care is not egocentric, it is simply looking after oneself as we would care for another loved person or animal. Self-care recognizes that any love we have for another is really the same as the love we give ourselves. When St. Francis called his body, Brother Ass, this was not to beat himself up, but to nurture the beast that he knew he was. We need taking care of and when we look after ourselves, we are better able to care for others. Care goes both ways.