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THERAPY FOR HELPERS, HEALERS & THOSE IN HELPING PROFESSIONS

Stop burnout and turn your colossal capacity for compassion back on yourself.

You are a helper

You’re used to solving problems, having answers, and holding up the structure of your world when others can’t. You swoop in when others are running away. You’re juggling so many things in life and you expect yourself to catch each one perfectly, every time.

It’s a great privilege to be entrusted with this role in the lives of others, but that privilege can become heavy. As a helper and a healer, you may experience burnout, despair, feelings of helplessness, overwhelm or frustration. You may feel obligated to always know the right thing and to support others. You may forget to do those things for yourself along the way.

green tree growing in the forest

It’s time to help yourself

All your life, you’ve cultivated compassion for others, while holding yourself to a ruthless standard of perfection. It’s made you good at what you do, but where does it end? When has the sacrifice of your time, resources, or mental health chipped away enough at your core sense of self that you’ll choose to put your own needs first?

Your commitment to compassion for others can become a pain point in your own life, but it doesn’t have to be this way forever. Therapy with me is respectful of this primary drive in your life to be helpful to others, but will also hold you accountable for your own self-care. I can teach you to construct boundaries, and no longer enable the self-critical part or self-minimizing attitude that drives you.

Benefits of Counseling for Helpers and Healers

  • Improved boundaries 

  • Responsible emotional regulation

  • Effectively manage stress in your life

  • Heal from vicarious (or second-hand) trauma 

  • Manage symptoms of burnout

  • Tools and knowledge to support your safety

  • Preventative care techniques for wellness

  • Identify compassion fatigue in your work and life

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Why this might be the right therapeutic approach for you

Whether this path is your calling or something you’ve fallen into, that sacrifice can begin to take away from your ability to feel connected to yourself. Helpers who pride themselves on the support they give others may find themselves uniquely disconnected from their ability to give care to themselves. For this reason, a therapeutic approach that centers this role in your life can make all the difference in supporting you to mend your mental health and empower you moving forward. 

Helpers and healers are more likely to experience imposter syndrome, vicarious trauma, feelings of burnout and a loss of direction in their lives even when it’s filled with purpose. It takes a unique kind of therapy to heal the heroes in our world, especially when they begin to doubt themselves.

Sound like what you need?

  • About Compassion Fatigue and Burnout

    Even the deepest wells will dry up eventually. This is true of literal wells and the metaphorical ones we hold inside ourselves of energy, compassion, and even pain. When you use the heart of yourself to fuel the way you move through the world, it’s natural that you’ll feel tapped out or used up at times.

    Compassion fatigue is a gentler term that’s parallel to burnout. Simply put, this is what occurs when you run that well dry and desperately want to continue to help and serve but no longer have access to the resources to do so. When you’re experiencing compassion fatigue, you may feel resentful and angry in situations where you’ve previously felt empowered. You are likely to feel powerless, frustrated with yourself and overextended. You might feel like people are no longer grateful for your work and time, or even like you don’t belong in the role you’re in now.

  • Why Being a Helper Needs Unique Therapy Techniques

    Healer | Caregiver | Frontline worker | Mentor

    There are so many words for the role of holding all the pieces together in times of need. You might be a professional helper like a therapist, social worker, doctor, nurse or teacher. Helping may also just be a part of who you are; something so innate to the way you love and express care of others that you can’t not help others when it’s in your power to do so. Each of those roles requires something a little different but they share one common thread: they ask a huge amount of sacrifice.

    You will benefit from coming to therapy in a way that respects this integral part of your identity while encouraging you to actively seek ways to support healthy healing and connection in your life. In my life and work, I have cultivated the gentle guidance you need to look inward with critical compassion to find balance.

Heal yourself, help the world

Your whole world blooms when you’re caring for yourself. From re-framing the lens of fact and feeling to learning coping tools for regulation in crisis, therapy designed for you as a healer will help you help others by putting yourself first. Stop burnout and turn that colossal capacity for compassion back on yourself. 

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