Speaker A: Welcome to the Therapist burnout podcast, episode 46. Hey therapist, welcome back. I am talking with you a little bit about election week. It’s still election week at the time of this recording in the United States. I know some of you are not in the United States, but I think that political anxiety certainly can come up for a lot of our clients and ourselves. So I want to touch on that and just what I kind of follow up some from some conversations that I had over on LinkedIn. I think I just want to touch on as well just how people are feeling and some of my observations. This is my second attempt at recording today, so I recorded and it didn’t happen. So this is take two. And so when I do that, when the first recording doesn’t work, it’s kind of hard. But I’m here, I’m in it. And so I just wanted to read you a post that I read on, I posted on LinkedIn. So let’s be real. Therapy is weird sometimes, especially in in election. Where else do you nod along why someone deep dives into the latest conspiracy theories without flinching? You are hardened. Have clients ask your opinion on the election while you’re busy figuring out how to not overshare on your own stress about it. Help people unpack their anger over a politician, all while silently wondering if you’ll be able to keep your cool in the next conversation. So I think my point with this post is that from our training, a lot of us were kind of not taught to bring up politics in the therapy session. That’s one of the things that we shouldn’t have opinions on because it could really alter the therapeutic relationship. However, I think many of us have come to the truth that there’s no way to be neutral in these times, period. And I have the perspective of not being a therapist anymore. But I did work through several election cycles and I’m still holding space for you. I know a lot of still in the midst of this, you’re still seeing clients next week who maybe you’ve not seen since the election. And I wanted to look at a little bit of research on political anxiety. I didn’t get in that as much in the last episode, but I think I just want to help you guys with a framework of how to deal with something that’s a chronic cultural stressor. Say, like Covid, right? When we were all going through Covid, when our clients were going through it, it was common experience and a car and a common stressor we had with our clients that would cause them to check in with us about how we felt about it. And I think in the case of a divisive election as well, clients are checking in without how are you doing? How are you feeling? And it takes us to have to reflect on our own feelings so that we can either respond to that or respond in a way that feels okay for us to respond to. And that can be very specific to the client, to the day, to our own resources. But how we choose to respond in our own identities, Right. We might choose to respond differently based on our own identities. You know, I am a white woman who has privilege, and so I might need to respond or I can respond rather in a certain way that may not be available to other people. And I’m very well aware of that. And so I think folks that might be from more marginalized communities may feel differently. They may feel like they are in fear, may feel like they need to protect themselves more. In the light of this recent election, I had one therapist comment in LinkedIn that said I had seven sessions today, which also means I had seven in depth sessions about the election. What a day. In kind of my second post this week on LinkedIn, I said I’d love clients to know that yes, even as therapists, we’re deeply affected by the stress and division around us. As a former therapist, I felt that during these weeks I had to just keep going and forget my needs. I’m here to tell you you’re human too. And this is what it really means. We feel tension. So the anxiety, the news, the social media whirlwind, it’s in our lives too. And I think I didn’t quote this in that post, but I’m just going to pop over to apa, American Psychological association, where I find a lot of my research because they, you know, I’m a psychologist, so I’m going to use them a lot. So I just want to go on APA’s 2024 stress survey. And that was. That’s in 2024. Yeah, I’m not editing that out because I’m human. We’re going to go with humanity. That’s the theme of today. So 77% of US adults said the future of our nation was a significant source of stress in their lives. Also in 2016, the presidential election caused significant stress for 52 adults. And this year it jumped to 69, big increase. Also, many adults said they were worried that the election results could lead to violence. 74% of respondents. And it could be the end of our democracy. Over half of respondents. So this research is highlighting that this is a chronic stressor for people. It’s not going away. It is not changing. And while that research article also talked that political stress and anxiety tends to fade after election, I think certainly for some marginalized communities, we can say that is, on average, that is not an individual experience. And certainly I saw for a lot of my clients, they felt like this was a constant stressor for them and felt like it did impact their experience a great deal. I talked with Krista Harrison in back in, I think, episode two, and this. I’ll put that in the show notes. So check out episode two. Let me just check. Okay, sorry. That was episode three of Navigating Burnout to Advocate. That was Krista Harrison. And so Krista spoke a lot about their clients. So they work with the LGBT community in a southern state, and there were a lot of laws related to trans individuals. So in episode three, Krista Harrison talks about their experience working in the LGBT community, specifically talking about legislation that was coming through their state that was targeting individuals in the LGBT community and specifically those that might be transitioning to another gender and targeting therapists to, like, disclose records. And so many clients were feeling, on their caseload, feeling like they need to leave the state. Some had left the state. So I think these situations are causing people to change how they’re living and potentially relocating. So I think there. There is a level of chronic stress that’s important. So I put that out there. That’s from the clinical side of things, that this is not going away. We. We have to start thinking of if we’re staying in the work as a therapist or if we’re winding down our work as a therapist, that this will likely continue to be part of the work. And I’m hopeful also that schools will start to train their trainees to handle this. How do we ethically navigate this? There’s no ethical code that says how we should navigate this. It doesn’t say we have to be neutral. That doesn’t say that we can’t put on our website how we lean politically. And that’s something that I started to do when I was leaving therapy. So I. I think I talked about in the last episode that I identified openly as a Christian psychologist. And I still identify as a person who holds Christian beliefs. Yes, a Christian. However, I also am someone who is supportive of the LGBT community of black lives. Matter of. Of humans just has show up in their bodies. How are they show up in their bodies? So I probably would be identified as most people as more liberal leaning, but I would be kind of Pigeon holed into. You are a person of faith, so you must believe X, Y and Z things or you must live in this X, Y and Z way. And so towards the end of my practice, I, you know, had a. A Therapy Den kind of badge. Let me see what that thing even said. But I think it said, like, inclusive of all people or something. Let me see what it says. Yeah. So I had this Therapy Den badge that had, like, this practice is inclusive and welcoming. Welcoming to all genders, races, countries of origin, sexual orientations, religions, abilities. So I had that on my website and I feel like it helped. It helped for people who maybe did not like that or did not think that was important to them and their therapist to probably opt out, self select out of that. Yeah, that could be a way if you want. They. If I liked Therapy Den, I don’t know how many referrals I really got from Therapy Den, but I thought it was a good service. And that’s. I think the founder of that is Jeff Kussner. I want to say it’s Guthner. Okay, Guthner. He’s like the. He’s on TikTok a lot. What is his name? Therapy Jeff. I want to go with Therapy Jeff. We’re going with that. All right, little sidebar. So back to humanity, back to being a human and a therapist. Because sometimes we’re not seen as both human and therapist. And so these points, we feel the tension. So I just talked about some of the research of that tension. And that applies to us, right? We care deeply. Our values and beliefs don’t switch off. We’re invested in the world around us like anyone else. We reflect and recalibrate. Our sessions require us to refocus so we can be fully present without our own stress in that way. I just got off a call with a therapy therapist client because I’m not a therapist, but I work with therapists. And I think they were just saying, you know, I was just like, I had sea level work today. Like some days you do sea level work and you still show up. And that’s hard. When we continue to do that, we continue to just show up. And we don’t have a space to refocus or allow us to be present. But we try our best, right? We try our best to be present for our client in the way that we can. And so that’s what I know of therapists that we. We try our hardest to do those things. So we need support too. Like everyone, we turn to colleagues, friends in our routines to stay centered. I think a Lot of the experience that I find for therapists is that they feel like they have been untethered to supports for a long time because they have been doing constant giving and caring. And part of burnout certainly is that we start to numb out, right? We start to pull back from our routines and the people that love us. So I think a lot of my work with my therapist clients is to help them reengage in those supportive networks. I think this week, reading responses from therapists, I think I was kind of struck with how much we are feeling like, or you are feeling like, because I’m no longer working as a therapist, are feeling like I don’t even know what to do. I don’t even know where to start. Like, how do I even support people? How do I not have to talk about this for two weeks? And I wish that you didn’t have to talk about it for two weeks, but maybe just think about going back to basics. And I like the kind of phrase of can I just, can I just start the session with saying, hey, you know, I’ve been reading some research and maybe quoting some of this apa, you know, stress survey. More than half of people are stressed out about this and I’m wondering if we can look at some practices that will help reduce some of your stress. And then going over those, maybe if you are a therapist who have a, has a specific modality. For me, I was an EMDR based therapist. Maybe I’m like, let’s do a regulation skill today. So maybe you’re like doing calm place all day with people and then doing like dropping into your own calm place with your clients this week. That can be a great tool. So just say this is going to be the focus and you’re the therapist, right? You can lead the discussion and say, hey, let’s start out in this way. And I think it’s going to really help our conversation go a lot better and also provide you with some tools. So you’re already setting the tone in session now that you’re starting this way, that we’re going to have this type of dynamic in the session so your ears aren’t bleeding at the end. So part of this is your own kind of caretaking for yourself as a therapist. And also it is good for the client. It is good for the client not to vent and not have a strategy at the end for how to deal with what they’re feeling. And I think revisiting back to this is what therapy is. We are working on how you can heal from trauma or have Strategies to manage your anxiety or have things in place so you can better manage your depression. So I think if we tie it back to the clinical goals, we have unconditional positive regard for our clients, regardless of how they show up. Just trying to see them as a human. How would I see this person if they were an 8 year old child and they were doing these things? How would I treat them? Trying to have that mindset, even if they’re saying things that are triggering to you, I think can be helpful. Does that mean that you have to take abusive language, hateful language, hate speech? Of course not. Of course not. I think we, that is in our ethical code that we don’t condone those things. Right. So I think there’s, there’s ethical guidance. I talked a little bit about that last time that we can do that. But I think having a frame, how am I going to frame a very stressful week for most of my clients? Maybe doing a regulation skill would be a good start. Maybe talking about some psychoeducation around political anxiety, having some sheets of paper ready to go and some recommendations like min, minimizing their media consumption, making sure that they are tending to their bodies, getting deep rest, engaging in their social networks in a way that’s meaningful versus on social media. So instead of getting the fast food version of connection via social media. And this is Cal Newport. He talks about this. Think about, let’s text a friend, let’s call a friend, let’s set up a coffee date, let’s set up a time to get together with someone who knows and loves you, where you can decompress. Think about engaging in an active activity of play this week. Whether that’s pickleball, tennis. I play tennis, so it’s always tennis for me. Whether that’s cards, knitting, whatever your hobbies are, thinking through that for yourself and your clients. How can I engage and play this week so I can regulate and co regulate with the people that love me and care about me? Okay, so I’d have you think through that frame and also maybe you even go to looking at some DBT stuff. Right. I love the concept of radical acceptance in dbt. We don’t have to like what happened, but we can accept that that’s the truth of the day. We don’t have to agree with the election, but we can accept that this was the outcome. We don’t have to continue the suffering. So thinking of that pain versus suffering discussion to have with yourself and clients and then maybe going through, you know, I had like 10 million DBT workbooks, maybe you have that as in your toolbox as something you go through with clients. You walk through a DBT worksheet. Worksheet on Radical Acceptance on accepting this was the event, this is what caused it. These are the my emotions and this is my proactive way of how I’m going to deal with my emotions and my intense reactions to what’s coming up. And so that again, gives them a frame. You are giving them a frame for how they can process this information as well as yourself. So really thinking through we have great skills. We just have to also apply them to ourselves and how we work through this. So I hope that is helpful today as a kind of continuation of how do I even think of starting a session when I don’t even know what to do? And I would say have a frame, have some things, print out some things that you can have as go tos for when that comes up. You can just kind of do the same session and do and have it on rinse and repeat. Okay, I’m either going to do psychoeducation on election anxiety or I’m going to do DBT Radical Acceptance. I’m going to do Calm Safe Place. If I’m EMDR therapist, I have all the tools in my toolbox and I’m going to know where are the sticky points in my caseload. Where, where are the sessions where I might need some extra tools or some extra consultation this week. So I hope that’s helpful. Send me a note my email. You can have my direct email. I’ll email you back. It’s info.com that’s two T’s and a E. Also I’ll include links to my pen pal list where you can get updates on the podcast and all the juicy bits that I don’t share on my podcast or my socials. It’s usually just one social. I just post on LinkedIn by the way, because I can’t. I just can’t do Instagram. No. So I wish you well, therapist. Thank you for doing the work that you’re doing. Hey therapist, thanks for listening to the episode today. If you love this podcast, send it to a therapist friend who may need it. Also consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcast. It lets the podcast player know that this is a great podcast. We should send it to more people. Also, I’d love to hear from you. So I have included my pen pal list for other therapists. Yes, I do write back and I’d love to hear from you. Request for podcast topics to know how you’re doing in this, in these therapy streets. So I’m here for all of it. So I would love to hear from you, and we’ll talk soon.
