Wow, now that’s a stern title. Usually I don’t take myself that seriously. Really. I’m the guy who often risks making a joke during a tense child protection meeting with angry parents. Often a bad idea, I won’t lie. But when it works it’s golden and I look like a social work genius. I like to clown around when I can. Yet I have to tell you, when it comes to the topic of “surviving social work” I sober up. I get dead serious.
I hate the word “wellness” and I despise the term “self-care”. Why? Because to me they reek of upper-middle class privilege. My ears hear, “I think I’m going to switch yoga studios because I’m not sure my instructor gets me” or “My weekly hot stone massage was divine.”
Don’t get me wrong- I’m not against you getting your downward dog on, and I sure would love a hot stone massage (every week). No, what I am saying is that wellness behaviors often come across as privileged acts taken by those who are already well-ish. Those who have resources. Those who live a relatively charmed life already (aka: not our clients). I sense that a lot of you in your helping professions may think so too. Let’s face it: it’s flat-out hard to savor your Reiki appointment after helping a homeless guy find some underwear.
I am talking about survival. My concern is with staying alive emotionally and psychologically, which for helping professionals can be an insurmountable task. I mean, look at the numbers. In the field of child protection social work, 70% of frontline workers have had symptoms of PTSD and 15% are currently diagnosable with the condition. Yearly turnover in those trenches is between 30-90% depending on where you are. Can you imagine losing 9 out of 10 of your co-workers every year? One study estimated that the average new child welfare worker only survives for about 14 months in the field.
But these numbers are more than just unattached or meaningless figures. These numbers represent the lives of people. When you dig into the stories of helping professionals you see human beings who are getting taxed in ways they have never before experienced for long periods of time. Here’s what I have personally witnessed in social work over the past decade:
- a parade of workers who have quietly entered my office in tears because they hated their lives
- first-hand stories of professionals with degrees who are struggling with drug addictions, food addictions, sex addictions, and the like
- professionals who have told me they would be better off if they got hit by a truck
- hurting social workers who have been emotionally, psychologically, and even physically abused by their supervisors
Those are the extreme cases, for sure. But don’t get me wrong- there are many of them. What happens more typically is that people tell their peers at the office or their bosses that they have decided to go back to school for their master’s degree or that they are taking time off to have kids or they’ve decided that this specific position isn’t right for them. Behind closed doors, however, another story emerges: they are climbing the walls to get out. They have gone full-limbic. They are running from real danger because they realize they are not safe.
Ready for that hot stone massage yet? Let’s get back to the problem. “Self-care” and “wellness” just sound too fluffy. It sounds like they are meant for those who have not undergone that extreme level of professional stress. Those labels just aren’t adequate to describe what is needed to survive emotionally in many social service systems. To weather the onslaught.
We would never say to a construction worker, “Those steel toed boots and hardhat are a luxury.” We would never look sideways at a skydiving instructor as she conducts her second or even third check of her parachute. These processes aren’t sexy. They are simply a necessity to protect the worker; required tools that are needed to be safe on the job.
So if the risk of trauma and burnout is so high for helping professionals then why isn’t this a focus? Why aren’t universities teaching this? Why does my employer have nothing (or only minimal systems) in place to protect me? It’s a complicated answer, but I have three possible explanations:
1. There is a no talk rule, so the problem goes unaddressed
Remember how I suggested last week that people often feel inadequate but want to project an image of confidence and happiness to those around them? Unfortunately when professionals experience trauma they often feel at least partially responsible. They feel guilty. When asked by our coworkers how we’re doing the “correct” answer is “awesome!” or “great!” Why do we answer this way? Because of social pressure. If we don’t see the professionals around us say “I am suffering right now” then it’s probably not safe to choose that answer either (and you’re probably right to keep your mouth shut).
My wife and I experienced this when our first child came along. We were both a mess. We felt really lost. We also felt major guilt because we were supposed to be able to handle it. We were supposed to be enraptured by our new bundle. I felt powerless to help my tearful wife. Worst of all, the other mom’s seemed to be doing just fine (even though statistically 70% of all new moms have postpartum blues, and 10-20% have diagnosed postpartum depression). My guess is that this cycle of guilt and silence is self-perpetuating. No one is talking so no one talks. No one wants to be the first one to be open; to be vulnerable.
I contend that the same holds true in our offices. Even though we know better, none of us wants to be the loser who needs help. None of us wants to be the one who can’t cut it.
2. Trauma often looks like incompetence or a poor work attitude
The second reason there is commonly no intervention for protecting helping professionals from trauma and burnout is that we are still bound by an old-school or “mainstream” employment paradigm. This is a way of thinking that says that if someone is not meeting employment performance criteria it is due to a deficit in their character. It is seen as a moral failing that must be corrected via supervisory and disciplinary means.
But here is the rub: symptoms of trauma and burnout just happen to look much like what the system calls incompetence or poor attitude. Here is a list of symptoms that are commonly associated with burnout, and how they may be perceived:
- Chronic fatigue. Your supervisor may read this as a lack of motivation to do your job.
- Forgetfulness/lack of attention. Possibly perceived as not caring about your client.
- Increased illness. How many sick days have you been taking lately?
- Anxiety. Sometimes leads to avoiding certain people and tasks at work.
- Outbursts of anger. Could be toward clients or other service providers.
- Cynicism. Easily picked up by others in little jabs and comments.
- Reduction in performance. These could lead to poor job reviews, etc.
These are all common symptoms of burnout. They are also the things management traditionally associates with “bad workers”. What ends up happening is that in response to these symptoms, management is often unsympathetic, which adds to the stress-load placed on the worker. Submitting to a performance review in a large boardroom table full of supervisors and HR personnel can be traumatizing in it’s own right.
Here is the absolute worst aspect of looking incompetent or cynical as a helping professional: you look this way to yourself. As I have said in previous posts, the worst effect that trauma and burnout have on us is that they make us believe (falsely) that we are losers based on seemingly tangible feedback (poor reviews, knowing we have avoided a client, etc.). We see ourselves failing and our self-concept drops from a 7 to a 4. I believe that many leave social services each year because (consciously or unconsciously) they are trying to recover their identity and their sense of self regard.
3. The powers that be cannot know or relate to what’s happening on the ground
I don’t blame the managers. I really don’t. Are they responsible? Yes they are. Should they know what’s happening to us front line workers on the ground? Yes, they should. I don’t want to make excuses for them, but let’s just think about their jobs a little. Maybe you have a program manager working at a high level in an agency. This guy is really the person who can help- he has both the authority and dollars to make changes. First of all, he may not even have a relevant (read: helping profession) degree. How is he supposed to know about clients and vicarious trauma and all of that stuff? He may have been hired for his MBA or HR degree or because he has a lot of experience managing people…in other industries.
Second, he may have never worked in the mucky and mired trenches with down-and-out people. Or maybe he did 20 years ago. When was I most empathetic toward new parents? When I was a new parent! I finally got it! But even now, even though my youngest is only 5 years old, I can feel my memories (and therefore empathy) fading away… It’s just as simple as that. The fact is that this unempathetic dynamic, combined with the desire by the professional not to look bad and a “no-talk” group culture means that our needs will more often than not go unaddressed.
It shouldn’t be this way, but when it comes to healing ourselves from burnout and trauma:
We must assume that we are on our own.
We cannot wait to be rescued. That’s not to say we shouldn’t reach out. Rather we must take actions to try to improve our own situations. We are the best people to assess and meet our own needs. That’s what this blog is all about. That’s what my course is all about. I have built my course to answer these questions:
- Where do I start in order to begin the healing process?
- What is the low hanging fruit? In other words, what are the few things I can do that pay the highest return with the lowest expended energy?
- How are my beliefs holding me back and what beliefs will lead me to a place of calm, even when I am in the middle of the storm?
- Most importantly, how do I recover my resilience so that I can live a meaningful and fulfilled life?
These questions are not questions of privilege. Every human is entitled to ask them and vigorously pursue the answers. There’s no guilt here because this is about your emotional safety, and safety is a right. Everyone has permission.
You have permission.