Speaker A: Welcome to the Therapist burnout podcast, episode 62. Hey, therapist. Today I have a guest for you. I’m excited to share this episode and we’re just going to do a deep dive into all kinds of things.
We’re talking about how it’s a struggle at the beginning of our careers. I feel like nearly every therapist I talk to has a story about the beginning of their careers that is just like, why do we have to go through this as professionals?
So we dive into that and then just talk a little bit more about Dr. Lisa Marie Bobbies, that’s my guest this week about her own story of finding how to be alive.
And I it’s something that is just on my mind that the opposite of burnout and depletion, chronic stress, is truly feeling alive. I started to access this after I came out of burnout of I wasn’t meant here to work constantly, to be stressed out constantly, to work and have nothing else.
That I’m a human and I can find things that make me feel alive because this is the one life that you have. It’s the one life that I have. And I feel like we’re accessing this in this episode.
Also, if you have not yet joined my pen pal list, you get all the good stuff. So I’ve really started to share more and more stories from my personal life.
And this week I’ve talked about. I’m talking about this feeling alive. I’m doing this alive series as part of the month of March because at least where I live, it is like still full blown winter.
And we’re on the precipice of spring and it’s just this mirroring of the season of, of starting to wake up. And I see this with my burnout clients. You are starting to wake up and you need to wake up to life because you felt so stagnant for so long.
Join me on the pen pal list. Well, you’ll be hearing stories that of the things that make me feel alive because I want to trigger that glimmer in you. Listen up.
Hey, therapists. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have a guest for you. Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby. How are you doing, Lisa?
Speaker B: I’m fantastic, Jen, and I’m so happy to be here with you and your community. I’m such a fan of what you’re doing, I have to tell you.
Speaker A: Oh, thank you. I like fans.
Speaker B: Well, you’ve earned them. I mean, really well.
Speaker A: I mean, you probably know what it’s like when you have a podcast. You know, there’s a little bit of the talking into the void. And then people will write into you or they’ll, you know, talk with you, and you’re like, oh, okay, great.
I’m glad that it’s hitting. I’m glad that it’s resonating. So actually, all those little emails I get and comments I get and all of that, number one, it’s. It’s validation,
but also it. It really, like, speaks to the work that we are doing. That you’re doing a podcast, that it is resonating. It is, absolutely.
Speaker B: Yeah. You’re so right. I. So, like. Like, you have podcasts, and we’re, like, tossing bottles into the ocean, like, just sitting in our little rooms talking to ourselves, basically. And is anybody listening?
And so when somebody is, like, gets in touch and says, that meant something to me.
Speaker A: It’s.
Speaker B: It’s just the best.
Speaker A: It is.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: It is wonderful. So, as we do on this podcast, Lisa, what’s your burnout story?
Speaker B: I am so glad that you asked, because I think,
you know, in. In my role professionally, I’ve been through a number of different chapters in my career and have arrived at a place where I’m a clinical supervisor. I do a lot of counselor education.
I’m running a group practice. And so I kind of need to be the person that is okay, even if I’m not okay on the inside. Right. And I know that we do that to a degree with our clients, but I think in a lot of my professional spaces, I’ve had to do that,
and I can. But it’s just so refreshing to have the opportunity to talk with you and other professionals about the reality of what we experience and the times that we’re actually not that okay.
Because I feel like, globally, therapists feel like they need to be okay. Right. Other people expect them to be in that space.
Speaker A: So I call it the professional armor.
Speaker B: Something. It’s. Yeah, but it’s. It’s not. It’s not always the reality. And so, I mean. Okay, so my professional burnout story, as I was thinking about this and coming in and talking with you,
I realized that I actually have had multiple chapters of this in my life,
and for different reasons, but because I’ve been doing this for a while. I mean,
I can’t even believe it, but I graduated from counseling school. It’ll be 20 years ago this year, and I don’t even know how that happened. But after I graduated with a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, I love learning.
I wanted to keep going, and so I enrolled in a doctoral program because I Was like, there’s more to learn. And so I did a PhD program in counseling psychology.
Loved it, learned so much. But it’s a lot of work.
And I was married and in probably year three of my PhD program,
my husband and I had love child. And so I, I took a little bit of time away from the program prior to starting my clinical internship in order to just take care of my baby for a year, which was great and I’m glad that I did that.
But then, you know, you can’t postpone stuff like that forever.
And so when my son was about one,
I began my clinical doctoral internship at a community mental health center.
And in this chapter of life, I had also, after completing my master’s degree, started a solo private practice. So seeing clients on evenings and weekends.
I was writing a dissertation, working on it. I was in a community mental health center for 50 plus hours a week. And I still had a little baby that was waking up, you know, through the night and such a sweetie.
We did extended breastfeeding, like all the things. And also just day to day in that clinical work was encountering lovely people that I cared so much about. But a lot of intergenerational trauma people just dealing with extremely difficult life circumstances that didn’t have an easy answer, right?
I mean, many times not really solvable problems and just the whole construction of community mental health and the demand,
I might be able to see them like once every other week, once every three weeks. And so there were all of these different pieces that basically led me to feel like I was failing in literally every dimension of life.
I was feeling, experiencing vicarious trauma on a regular basis with a job.
Not able to help the clients that I was tasked to help.
Not able to really devote enough time and energy to do a good job with other aspects of this role. So psychological testing.
I was failing as a wife. I felt like I was failing as a mother. I did not see my friends for significant periods of time. I had this little private practice that I was trying to get going and that was just a.
And so just really feeling quite overwhelmed and just like stuck, like just hanging on and I think broke, you know, like my husband was doing okay, but I think I added it up once that in this clinical internship,
all of the work that I was putting in, like we were awarded something of a stipend. But I think it worked out by like all the hours I was working like five bucks an hour.
Maybe it was not okay.
I wasn’t okay.
And I remember like when I, when I did see personal Friends from time to time during that period, they would be like, hey, how are you? And I remember having an interesting experience which is like, just talking to people and just answering like, here’s what’s going on.
And just like, sort of seeing like the energy change, their faces fall. It was like,
oh, I’m this. I probably shouldn’t tell them how I’m really doing because I think that they,
it made them feel bad because they didn’t know how to help me. I was like, stuck in this place and dealing with really serious things. But I think that actually probably contributed to a sense of isolation during, during that period that didn’t make things better.
I think my husband didn’t know how to help me. Yeah. And then like, you know, getting three or four hours of sleep a night on top of that.
Speaker A: Oh, I know. I’m just like, oh, the shoulders.
Speaker B: I’m sorry, I’m like, re. Traumatizing you.
Speaker A: No, it does bring back my own internship experience. I did not, you know, I did not have a baby at the time,
thankfully, because it’s just such a difficult time. Like, you have to get this year of experience before you get your doctoral degree.
And I actually had some workplace bullying happening from the clinical director that I worked with. And I had times where I was like, I, maybe I just won’t get this degree.
Maybe it just won’t happen. And then that’s a whole thing to reckon with. And yeah, you know, why am I even doing this at. Even before we start? And I keep hearing stories of, from clinicians that either they didn’t know if they should get their license, they didn’t know if they should continue on right.
When they’re getting licensed or before they get licensed. So I think it’s a really stressful time in a clinician’s life. And we actually know that from research, like pre licensed, just licensed early career psychologist or trainees are struggling with more anxiety, probably because of the life transitions and things of that nature that you just spoke to.
Speaker B: Yeah. But also I think too, like early career counselors also get put in situations like the dirtiest jobs that nobody else wants to do, like in home family therapy, like, you know, send the intern, send the postdoc.
We don’t have to pay them as much. And I think at that place in your career too, you’ll, you’ll say yes to a lot of things that somebody like me or you now, Jen, would be like, no, I’m not doing that.
But I, I think as a, a, a young person, you’re like, okay, okay.
I don’t even know what you’re getting into.
Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It is this quandary, and I think it’s. It’s not just our field, but also you see that in medicine, where. Oh, yeah, you know, residents are working in the ER or they’re working those jobs that are the most sick patients that we are, they’re treating with the least experience.
And,
you know, I don’t. I don’t know what we really say about that, but I think there should be some expertise that we should be bringing to these very difficult cases and not burning out people before they even arrive.
I know. In the field.
Speaker B: Yep, yep. And traumatize them before they even arrive. I mean, during that period, I had had a client. I had a couple of clients actually die.
Speaker A: Oh.
Speaker B: I mean, it was like. It was intense.
Speaker A: Yeah,
yeah,
yeah,
yeah. I. I feel like. Oh, my gosh. Someone on LinkedIn just sent me a thing about. It was more about depression, but they were saying, like, I felt like I’m running through a rose bush.
Speaker B: Ow.
Speaker A: Because we just keep going, Right? We just keep going, and then we don’t realize until, like, oh, my gosh, I’m very wounded here. I need to, like, caretake for myself.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker A: So how did you know? I’m doing this series on mental health and clinicians, and I’m wondering if you could share just potentially how your mental health or you’ve seen people’s mental health in the field be impacted either as a supervisor or from your own perspective by the work.
Speaker B: Definitely. Well, you know, I think in my situation,
my.
My mental health was looking back potentially also part of the problem in each of the different chapters of burnout that I have experienced. But also, interestingly, Jen, I think part of the solution for me personally,
so. And this is just closure. I realized around the same time that this was happening.
No, actually, that’s not true.
It was after that,
probably a couple of years after this, because I think that my son was three or four at the time.
But I became very curious about why I struggled to do some things that wound up making me feel bad professionally. So things like prioritizing time,
organizing stuff, staying on track, remembering things like being able to just. Especially the little things that we have to do, paperwork, emails, stuff like that, to the point where it started to feel debilitating, I think.
I think it was active during this period, but it got worse. And I think that’s part of why it led me to feel so stressed. But anyway, so I wound up getting involved in psych Testing and, like, what is going on.
And I have ADHD at that time, though, I hadn’t connected those dots. I do have a lifetime of feeling, you know, scattered,
flaky, like, all of the things. And that. That made me feel bad about myself. Like, I couldn’t. I care a lot. I’m a conscientious person, naturally, but I think I struggled with some of the responsibilities of the job because I didn’t have a way of understanding what was going on with me.
And it made it feel more stressful because I would get behind with things like notes or I would, like, forget that I was supposed to be somewhere. And so I think it just contributed to this overall sense of chaos and feeling kind of out of control and overwhelmed.
So I don’t know that that experience made that dimension of mental health worse, but I think because that was going on with it inside of me, I think it made the experience worse and it made me feel probably.
I don’t know. I don’t really have a tendency towards things like anxiety or depression. I can experience them, certainly, but I. I don’t have a proclivity to be in that.
That space. However, when I’m not managing ADHD and I feel scattered and like I’m not doing a good job, I. I feel stressed is how I was experiencing it, if that makes sense.
Speaker A: No, it makes total sense.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: Cause there’s a lot. It’s a lot to juggle. And I think it has me think of how we’re socialized as clinicians in academia as well, you know, that we, you know, to be that good student now, you have to get all your things in on time and be up on your notes.
Even in training, that gives us the gold star that we’re a good trainee, we’re a good student. And so I think all those little things are adding up for us.
These have to be competencies that we have to be good at.
Speaker B: Exactly. The good little bun. Buns, Flopsy, mopsy and cottontail. And those were the kinds of people that I was in my internship with. They were that they’re naturally organized and time sensitive and doing all that, the things.
And I’m like, screeching in five minutes late. My hair’s wet. Like, you know, all of that. And I was like, what is wrong with me?
So, yeah, that was definitely a salient factor.
Oh, yeah, yeah. But. But I will also share, though. I am a firm believer that there is light and dark in all things. And I will tell you, while this adhd, I do think Made the experience more stressful because I didn’t understand it at the time.
Everything comes with a superpower, right? Including adhd. And so as a result of this, it opened the door to a totally new chapter. So anyway, during this period, I was like, not okay, like half disassociated, like, not really present in life.
And my husband at the time, I think, was going through his own crisis of whatever. You know, he was working in a corporate job, like back and forth to the office every day, bored out of his mind.
And he’s a photographer, he’s kind of an adventurer. And he started sending me these links to, like websites, like blog posts from these young families who had sold everything and moved into Airstream travel trailers and were traveling the country and doing all these fun things.
And he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t like, let’s do this. He was just like, send me this stuff.
Matt Bobby is diabolical because I would look at these and be like, oh, that looks like so much fun. And like, compare it to our lives. And so eventually came to him, was like, you know what we should do?
And he was like, oh, what a brilliant idea. So the seed, seeds were planted. And I don’t know if this was a reaction to the burnout in some ways, like, I really wanted a happier life and saw this as a path.
But long story short,
we did it. I wound up finishing the internship. We’ve rented our condo,
bought a 30 foot long 1986 Airstream Sovereign Sight unseen, and spent an entire year traveling the country doing whatever. And this was also back in the day when people weren’t really doing that.
I mean, this would have been like. Well, I mean, some people were doing it, obviously. We wound up meeting some of the people that Matt had sent to me.
Speaker A: You know, you could just like, from wherever. That wasn’t probably the thing then.
Speaker B: Well, I mean, it was probably, I want to say 2013 is when this happened. And so, I mean, it was like emerging.
But it was one of the best years and I’m so grateful for it. And I also don’t think that that would have happened if I we had been more collectively satisfied with our life, that it kind of opened us up to the possibility of doing something radically different.
And it was so cool.
Speaker A: Yeah, that is awesome.
Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So we did it when our son was 2, and then we also did it again when he was six. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, it was really great.
Speaker A: Do you think that was an outgrowth of, you know, kind of living in an. In the box of the conformity of, okay, I’m supposed to do this internship, and then I’m.
Then the next year, I’m supposed to get a job or continue in my practice. And kind of similarly for your husband, like, just working that 9 to 5 grind, there was something about it that just felt like, we need to break out, we need to do something else.
Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I think one thing about Matt and I, and I do think that, in part, this goes back to being somebody with adhd. I think that one of the superpowers is a generally more just, like, flexible orientation to life.
And so I. And he is an artist. And so I don’t think that either of us ever felt a sense of pressure to conform into, like, a certain life path that was not like, a meaningful concept for either of us.
I think, though, both of us recognized that we were not happy with what we were doing.
And so I think that it was more a reaction to that. Like, this. Not fun at all.
And this idea, like. Like, life should be fun. It should be pleasurable, at least on some level. And if it isn’t, like, we need to do something else.
Yeah.
Speaker A: Yeah.
I’m just letting that hit me for a minute.
I think that’s, you know, a lot of times what we sit with in burnout. Like, everything feels hard,
everything feels. Feels bleak.
And I think really reckoning with that, and that was kind. I don’t. I’m not big on saying, like, the gift and a tragedy. It’s just like, I can’t mentally do it.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But I would say an outgrowth of maybe something tragic can be something that’s renewing. Right. So an outgrowth for me, for Covid, was I didn’t really love my practice,
and it was making me sick.
And so I had to really look at.
I don’t want to live this way. Totally. This is not the life that I want for myself. I built this practice, and I felt trapped by it. And what do I want to create instead?
Like, what. How do I just want to live? Like, I just want to kind of live my life, enjoy my children, have friendships,
feel human. And I think for a lot of therapists, they. They will write me all the time. I feel hopeless. I feel stuck. I feel like I have to do it this way.
There’s no other career for me. There’s no other choice for me.
And I get why you can be there, but also, I think you don’t have to.
Speaker B: Yeah. You don’t have to do anything. And I think that that’s one of my big Takeaways about all of the different chapters of bur that I’ve experienced, because I definitely got back into dark places after that.
But, you know,
I think from my perspective now is that none of us need to take what we’re handed. You have agency over your own life and your own outcomes. Empowerment means, I think, taking responsibility and that if you’re unhappy and not having a good time, you can do something different.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Don’t.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Like blow up the box. Buy a trailer. Yeah.
Speaker A: Tour the country.
Speaker B: Exactly.
Speaker A: Do the things I.
I do not like driving on the road. I had. Part of my burnout was that I got panic attacks driving. So that could be for you. But me, yes. My version of that would be to live on a cruise ship.
Speaker B: There you go.
Speaker A: That would be my version, which. I don’t know. My partner doesn’t like cruising, so I don’t know how that works for me. But, you know, you.
Speaker B: You will visit him in the different ports.
Speaker A: Fly to the Bahamas and meet me. Yeah.
Speaker B: Perfect day.
Speaker A: I love it.
Speaker B: Problem solved.
Speaker A: Yeah. But I. I think we do get stuck in these places in our mind that we cannot see a way out. We cannot see that there is an alternative. And we’ve been, for me, put.
I put so many chips in the psychology boat. Like, I gotta keep rowing the boat because. Yeah,
I have four degrees in psychology. I.
I know. Have a doctoral degree.
Speaker B: Yeah. And then you kind of feel like you have to, like, you got, like you get locked into something. And I. I personally believe that that is one of the biggest contributors to professional distress and burnout is feeling like we’re trapped.
And I do think that when we’re in a not great place,
things can become very binary. Do you know what I mean? It’s like either or black or white, this or that.
And if neither of those alternatives feel good, we feel so stuck. Right. And so, like, to blow that apart a little bit more and, like, give me some more options, because I don’t actually like either of those.
But that requires a different way of thinking that can be so difficult to access when we’re not in a good place.
Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it’s the antithesis of, you know, when we. We are in fight or flight constantly, which many of the therapists I talk to totally. Creativity goes offline. So cognitively, we just cannot access that type of thinking pattern.
So it does require our nervous system to be more regulated to be in that place.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And so part of my work as a therapist, I work with people with brain injury who were in constant fight or flight. And they were like, I just want to get, you know,
do this. Get into my back in my job. I want to figure out what my purpose is. I was like, we just have to figure out how to get through one day.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker A: Let’s just practice figuring out how to get through today, Then we figure out tomorrow, then we figure out next week, and then we can figure out your life, maybe, when we figure out that.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker A: But I see a similar process with therapists.
They’ll write. We often they’re like, could you tell me all the careers that I could do besides therapy? I’m like, I don’t know. Like, you could. Like, maybe it’s. I’m a librarian.
Maybe it’s target. Maybe it’s like, hr. I.
I need you to be in a different frame of mind to be able to make these decisions. And please don’t make a career decision in depletion.
Speaker B: Please.
Speaker A: But I know why they’re asking that question, because it’s like, the binary is there.
Speaker B: Well, yeah. And they don’t know where to go. Right. And just to have some direction because that. That paralysis and, like, literally not knowing what to do, it’s. I get it.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And that can feel really scary and trapping, but I think more like, you know, building resilience, building that empowerment of, like, hey,
you. Do you remember what you did on that internship? Like, how badass you actually are for all the work that you’ve done in your career?
Like, how you can run a meeting like a boss, which I can do. And so we forget, like, these skills that are inherent in us, and we feel like we are so trapped.
I’m like, no, we know. I’m not accepting that today. And just really figuring out, like, what are your actual skills?
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: How can we actually see this differently? So I have to really shake them up and let them know, like, the strength I see in them.
Speaker B: And.
Speaker A: Yeah, you feel beat down right now. Get it, been there, understand it.
But we need to start building, like, a foundation of what you can do and just take a break if you can.
Speaker B: Yeah. Great perspective.
Speaker A: So. Yeah. So I’m curious about your work with supervisees. Like, what are the newbies? How are they dealing with, like, being new therapists?
Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I mean,
so this. This actually goes into other. Other places. Because I think, you know, that one first experience I had in internship was that the. The first really hard part. But.
But then I had others that informed how I relate to clinical supervisees. So this is a direct line, but, you know, the next big chapter for me is that when we came back from that, that first round of, of travel,
I dug in more deeply to a solo private practice experience and did the things marriage and family therapist and started seeing therapy clients and experienced another round of really heavy stress that also led me to feel trapped and unhappy.
Where I was seeing clients day in, day out, couples, individuals, but I was struggling to feel effective with them. And that really, really bothered me because one of my primary core values is to be of genuine service to people and to like, if people are trusting me to help them,
I want to, I want to be trustworthy. And I was frequently feeling in my practice like I wasn’t that. And I, what the, what the pieces started coming together for me was that the majority of clients that I was seeing in my private practice were non clinical clients.
They were couples coming in because they wanted to have a better relationship with each other. They wanted to or individuals wanting to figure out a career path or individuals wanting to,
you know, get help getting through a breakup or divorce or work on themselves, build self esteem confidence. Which sounds like a good thing. I mean like therapists could be like, oh, that sounds like a great, great client, right?
Because it wasn’t super heavy stuff. I hadn’t realized for my brief tenure in community mental health that like I’m good, I don’t need to do that again. And so I began developing a practice around, around doing that differently.
But what I started to bump into was the fact that as therapists we are taught how to diagnose and treat clinical mental health disorders. And the systems that we learn are for that purpose, when in reality we often have different types of clients coming to us for help.
Where those mental health focus systems like, they don’t work that well because there isn’t deep psychopathology at the root of it. And that’s not really what people want from us.
And so when we try to go there as therapists, clients wind up feeling stuck, frustrated, like, why do you keep bringing up my parents divorce? How does that relate? Like whatever.
And so that made me feel bad. I began to feel stressed out, related to business stuff. And so at that juncture in my career, I began to explore and pursue coaching psychology as a modality.
And what I think many therapists don’t know is that evidence based coaching psychology is extremely legitimate. It is designed for the purpose of helping non clinical clients grow,
develop themselves and achieve outcomes. And there is a very clear, structured process that we can utilize what we learn from more traditional therapy within this model to serve a different client population more effectively.
And so I think that this, too, is an example of how it can feel like, do I stay in private practice and feel ineffective or double down on clinical mental health certifications or do something radically different?
That is none of those choices, but let’s find a different path. And as soon as I started doing that and incorporating coaching psychology,
I experienced a lot more joy with my clients. The work felt less heavy. It was fun. It was fun for them. It was productive. They were getting things out of it.
My business started to grow, and that was a real turning point for me in my career and is directly related to what’s going on with me as a clinical supervisor, because I think that, again,
therapists,
we only get a little bit of information about the possibilities that exist for us, when, in fact, there are so many more dimensions of this. And so as my practice started to grow and be more popular, clients were showing up.
But I also began to be approached by early career clinicians who wanted to partner up. I mean, like, I never intended to build a group private practice. I was just kind of doing my own thing.
But cloud solvers were coming up being like, hey, can I work with you? Can we do supervision together? I was like, okay. And one of the things that I experienced over the years is that clinicians coming into my practice, either as trainees in the process of getting a licensure,
or as much more seasoned clinicians who were needing support, mentorship, consultation,
to have a different perspective and a different image for what this career could be like, that was completely different from anything that they had been trained to expect,
or also very different from what they had been prepared to do. For many of them, it really felt like a breath of fresh air and so to speak. See early career clinicians coming into this field in a state of apprehension or perhaps during their internship experiences with a lot of very dark stuff,
to be given a different message about the opportunities was really helpful to them. So that, to answer your question, in a long way, is what I see with my clinical supervisees.
Speaker A: Yeah. So kind of giving them other options and having them see that and having them experience that and do that work is empowering them to think of the profession differently and to experience it differently.
Speaker B: Precisely. Yes. That we don’t have to take what we’re handed. You get to design your own reality. Yeah.
Speaker A: And I think that’s. That’s hard, you know, because I think in our field, there’s all these messages that we have to take insurance or we have to, you know, work at a job in a Certain way for me.
I never. Number one, I never thought I’d have a private practice.
Never wanted to. Didn’t feel like I was business oriented.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And I learned a lot of skills out of necessity because I couldn’t find a job that would allow me to stay home with my son.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Who had heart surgery when he was a baby. So,
you know, I think we can learn these skills. You can do different things.
And I found out that actually I don’t really love having a practice either. So it was good.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
Speaker A: You know, it can be awful.
Speaker B: That’s its own type of burnout. It’s running business.
Speaker A: But it’s often horrified as the practice is. Like, that’s the ultimate goal for therapists to get to their private practice. And some people thrive in it, some people do well in it, and some people.
It’s not for them.
Speaker B: Absolutely.
And you know what? I just need to say this out loud. That is not just therapists. Like, pretty much any business owner of any kind goes through significant periods of burnout because it is one of the hardest things you can do in any profession.
Running your own shop. Totally. And so then you take that very difficult thing and combine it with therapy, which can also be very difficult.
And I mean, a lot of therapists are like, I don’t want to do this anymore. On all these different levels. And valid. No, I mean, I mean, that’s what.
Speaker A: I help people too, pretty much. To shut the practice down.
Speaker B: Well, no, but like. But also I think that, that. But you bring up such a great point. We are trained as therapists to think that this is the holy grail and if I had was doing my own thing, then I would be happ.
And in contrast, you’re totally right. There are some, like, entrepreneurial personalities who thrive in that sort of uncertainty, having to figure out so many different things. Sales, marketing, business systems, finance, like all the stuff.
And the reality is that most people experience that as incredibly stressful. So that when therapists go and try to do that and are totally overwhelmed and anxious,
then they’re like, well, what does this mean?
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: What’s wrong with me now? Right. Because this was supposed to be the best.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: No, it’s awful. Don’t do it.
Speaker A: You know, I thought about,
you know, if I would have kept my practice small, like a small cash pay practice, and then had other work on the side, which, who knows, like, maybe I’ll go back to just working with therapists and therapy at some point.
I have inklings. I just like the coaching work. I do with therapists. So I’m fine with that.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: But there’s a part of me that loves therapy. But if I’d kept it small and then had, you know, like, did the contract work that I do as a psychologist in the schools, would I be.
Would I would have worked? Maybe. But I did. Again, I didn’t. I didn’t think of, like, coming outside of the box and still later.
So I think for therapists, thinking of if you’re. If you do private practice, great. It’s really isolating.
Speaker B: So isolating.
Speaker A: Your social needs need to be met somewhere else.
So if you’re a super social person, it might be fine. It might be like, I am super extroverted and I go out and party and it’s great. Not me.
And then.
Yeah. With having children, like, going through all the stages that most of the people are women who are therapists,
you’re going through a lot of changes, I think, for. If you’re gonna. If you have children, raising children, which I think has its own transition in life shifts that happen for us relationally anyway.
I mean, I went all through that. Going through a practice, like having a child,
opening a practice, closing a practice, going through menopause early medically.
Speaker B: So many transitions.
Speaker A: No wonder.
Speaker B: Yeah. So it all makes sense.
Speaker A: So I’m mindful of time. We should probably start wrapping up for today. But I wanted to ask you in transition to kind of how you’re finding joy right now.
Speaker B: You know, I’m so pleased to share that I can honestly say I’m finding joy in so many different areas of my life. I have been blessed with just a beautiful family, which is a constant source of joy.
And I think, personally,
I have wonderful friends and have developed a community of friends who are also therapists, which I think is really helpful to be able to talk about some of the realities of our shared profession.
But as a owner now of a pretty substantial group private practice, we have like 50 therapists running around here.
Yeah. I’ve also built a community of people who are not in our field, but who are running various types of businesses to be able to connect around that experience because it’s like its own thing.
But finally having time for personal hobbies, Snowboarding and snowboarding season in Colorado. So we’re all very happy about this. But. But I think the most exciting thing for me right now is.
Has been actually on a professional front. Believe it or not. I think I’ve gone through difficult chapters both as a therapist but also as a business owner. Like, I have had burnout related to that life experience too.
But over the last couple of years, working on creating different business systems has been really exciting. And in the latest incarnation of my business, I think I’m doubling down on how do we help and serve therapists around flourishing in this career.
And so I have taken my own journey related to becoming a certified coach, a board certified coach, and turning that into educational programs for therapists to obtain formal certification through the CCE to become board certified coaches, which is the right credential for therapists.
It’s when therapists want to do coaching, that is, that is what they do. And so being able to educate therapists, open up doors to different ways of helping people, I think is really exciting.
And so, like now with this, I have therapists coming in and they have been so burned out by these traditional experiences in mental health and they’re like, I can’t keep doing this.
And they’re looking for opportunities and to think, how can I continue doing some of what I know how to do so well,
but apply this in a different way. That feels genuinely energizing for me, fun for me. Carving out a different professional niche feels really exciting for them.
And so thinking more about how I can be of service to other people in this field has brought me so much joy. I have been doing love, happiness and success for therapists, the podcast.
And I think my intention is the same as yours, Jen. Like, just this recognition that there are so many people in our field who have gotten into this with such noble intentions and such a service,
a heart for service, so much love, this desire to help others,
but in doing so have felt truly damaged by the experience. And so what do we need to be putting in front of therapists in order to provide direction, guidance, help, even for things like starting a private practice, like, what do I need to know about that?
Or making decisions around cash pay, insurance,
being exposed to different models and orientations towards therapy. I think actually one path of healing, you know, above and beyond coaching, that’s what I discovered. But another one for therapists can be getting very clear about a different professional niche that is very much connected to what is meaningful, valuable to them and where they feel like they can flourish and thrive.
Like, I had the most interesting conversation lately recently with another therapist who went through exactly what you and I did and took time off, actually, like went and worked at an insurance company for a couple of years because she just couldn’t do it anymore and then stumbled on financial control therapy,
which is something that she had become very interested in personally. But like, all this Stuff started lining up around, oh, I could just do that. And so I think that also, you know, just putting different possibilities in front of therapists, like, that has given me so much joy because the world needs us.
Speaker A: They do.
Speaker B: I know. And. And it’s also absolutely okay. Yes.
Speaker A: It’s.
Speaker B: There’s craziness going on, but, like. And it’s also, I just want to say, totally okay and positive. And people also need permission to just, like, go do something else. You do not have to be a therapist.
You do not have to make this work.
And if there is a way for you to be not just okay, but, like, genuinely good in this profession and fulfill that mission of helping others, like that ripple effect, carrying that forward.
There’s so many ways of doing that. And the world. The world needs people to do that.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it’s like some people I meet, yeah, they are. They’re burned out, but they really are. Are wanting still to do this work. They really feel like, right, they can do it.
They just need to figure out a different way. And then some I meet are like, I need to shut it down and I can’t do this work. And maybe you’re right.
Like, maybe they’ll take that time off. Maybe they’ll do something else for a season and come back. I don’t know. But if you are at that point, you. You likely need a break.
And so a lot of. A lot of the work that I do is really offering that permission to listen to what is coming up inside of you.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And don’t. Don’t keep putting yourself in situations where you’re going to be chronically depleted.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker A: You don’t feel human anymore.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker A: So do things that bring you joy again. Do things that make you feel human again. So you can feel like then after the depletion is over, you can start making those decisions to figure out the next steps, but you can’t do it from that depletion point.
And that’s absolutely, like, one of the main things I try to hone in for people in burnout is. It’s just. It’s not the time for that. We’re not making career decisions right now.
We’re figuring out your burnout. We’re figuring out what you can do to make money. Just. Just right enough job. Like, it just has to be a good enough job so your body can do it, and then you can make some money and eat.
Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker A: All right, so another question that I’m starting to ask with you and other guests that will come on Is what would you tell a therapist that’s in burnout?
Speaker B: Yeah. I think the number one thing that I have learned through the years and different, you know, chapters of my career is centered around this idea of empowerment and the fact that all of us can do literally anything we want,
even if it feels like you can’t. In that moment, you have choices, you have agency, and you get to design your own reality in whatever image you desire. And I think that requires making contact with your core values.
What is my life’s mission? What is my purpose? What is meaningful to me? And then finding ways of living those values. And it could be through your work, it could be through your personal life, but that you can do anything you want.
And if you don’t like how something feels, do something different. You are not trapped. You are not a victim, and you have lots of possibilities that maybe you’ve explored, but maybe you haven’t.
And so to be open to new ideas, because sometimes I think when we are in dark places, we can certainly become, as we discussed, binary, narrow. It feels black and white.
It feels either or. But I think also sometimes when we’re really not okay, we need to do something radical in order to liberate ourselves and just, like, blow up the old world, open up doors to another.
And so I also think that being in a dark place can give you motivation and courage to do something that you might not have been able to do before. And so to use these moments as turning points that can take your life in a totally different direction.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Well said. Well said. Yeah,
I really love that, like, connecting back with, like, who you. I almost thinking of, like, you know, let’s rediscover, like, who you were, like, who was the core of you before?
I often go back to myself.
I used to choreograph, like, little dance routines with my beatbox.
Speaker B: Amazing.
Speaker A: In the yard. And I teach fitness classes now. That’s something I don’t. It’s not my career. Right. But it’s something I love to do. It’s something I enjoy doing. And so, you know, I think tying that back to, like, what is your true.
What is. What is. What are parts of your true self? And how do you connect to that? And what is that? What are those parts? How do they need to come out again?
Because we might have not, like, let them come out for a long time.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: So anyway.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Just couldn’t have come in my mind. And I was like, oh, I love that little.
Speaker B: And to play and to have fun and to have pleasure, like that Gets to be important.
Speaker A: So important. Yeah. Awesome. Well, where can people connect with you if they want to connect with you?
Speaker B: Of course. Thank you for asking. Well, I have a lot of just free resources intended to support therapists who are somewhere on this spectrum of we have flourish and thrive at one side and also like I’m done at the other.
Last year I launched a new podcast, Love, Happiness and Success for Therapists.
So you can find that. There’s YouTube, track me down on LinkedIn. Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby on LinkedIn. I’m posting about that. But also if you come to my website, growing self.com I have a lot of free resources intended to just support therapists along their journey.
So I’m trying to think of things that would, would help people. For example,
did you know, Jen, there are eight scams targeting therapists right now.
I have experienced literally all of them in my private practice.
Scared me to death groups.
Speaker A: Like one that was awful was like men getting on console calls and like exposing themselves.
Speaker B: Oh yeah, that’s like, that’s not even on the list because it happens so often. Yeah, no, like, I mean fraudulent, like phishing stuff. It’s crazy.
So anyway, develop like those types of resources for clinicians in private practice.
If you’re in that like middle space of figuring out I don’t feel good, I’m not having a good time. But what could I potentially change in order to make this experience different for me?
I have an assessment that you can find again on my website, growing self.com. there’s a whole section, it’s just for therapists that goes into free resources. But then certainly if somebody is looking to capitalize on their existing skills and be able to serve people in a similar way but have it feel really different,
I would absolutely encourage you to consider becoming a board certified coach and you can learn more about my coaching program if you’re interested on my website as well. Well, grow myself dot com.
Awesome.
Speaker A: Awesome.
Speaker B: Yay.
Speaker A: Well, thank you so much. It’s been great to have you.
Speaker B: This has been such a joy. And again, I just want to thank you for your work, Jen. I mean you’re giving people permission to just detach from something that might not be a good fit for them ever.
Like that you’re making that be a possible possibility.
That’s just.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So refreshing.
Speaker A: Oh, thank you. Yeah, I mean I, you know, when I hear people, when I, people have written me on LinkedIn and just been like, you know, you gave me permission to quit my job, I’m like, just from my LinkedIn post I was like, okay, great.
I’m glad that it helped you. Yeah.
Speaker B: Well, it’s good.
Speaker A: But, yeah, I. I think it was the. The voice I needed.
I needed someone to say it was okay in a way, or someone at least, to. To have that resonance. That I wasn’t an alien.
Speaker B: No, no.
Speaker A: And.
Speaker B: And. And again, it’s like, it worked for.
Speaker A: A lot of people, and that’s okay.
Speaker B: Totally. And shame, guilt, anxiety, and just that reinforcement like, you don’t have to do this at all. Be done. Be free. I love it.
Speaker A: All right, well, thank you so much.
