Is This Self Care? DRAFT

Session Description

BurSelf-care is an ethical imperative for mental health professionals. To care for ourselves we tend to, or are encouraged to, engage in activities that give us “a break” from the stresses of our clinical work. These activities can include watching TV, exercising, going for walks, engaging in meditative practices, gardening, playing video games, etc. Sometimes these oases are necessary to rest or to put our minds on something different, to then feel recharged and ready to re-engage in our deeply demanding work. These activities, however, can become forms of avoidance coping, which can momentarily decrease our anxiety but can maintain it in the long run by contributing to recurrent cycles of avoidance and anxiety. In this presentation, we will reflect on the ways in which we engage in self-care, consider their actual effectiveness, and contemplate some alternatives. Participants will be introduced to the concepts of avoidance coping and approach coping and their relation to anxiety. Through this conceptual lens, participants will examine whether their own self-care practices are alleviating or increasing their anxiety. Then, participants will be presented with suggestions to change their approach to self-care. These suggestions include shifting from merely 'doing' self-care to embodying a self-caring approach. We will also explore whether some practices and activities that we do not usually consider as self-care can actually have a self-caring effect. This presentation rests on numerous studies on avoidance and approach coping and their connection to anxiety, on a study conducted by the presenter on the acceptance of our own woundedness as a way to becoming self-caring, and on the presenters’ supervisory and clinical experiences.

Learning Objectives: 

• Identify the potential risks and drawbacks of certain self-care activities for mental health professionals.
• Understand the concepts of avoidance coping and approach coping and their relationship to anxiety in the context of self-care practices.
• Evaluate and critically reflect on personal self-care practices to determine their effectiveness in alleviating or increasing anxiety.
• Explore alternative approaches to self-care that promote a self-caring mindset.