Therapist Burnout (Humor)
Signs you might be experiencing burnout as a therapist/counselor:
- You forgot how to get to your office.
- Watching the fish in your aquarium for 8 hours seems more enjoyable than going to work.
- You’ve already missed work time due to watching your fish.
- You asked one of your colleagues if you need a billing slip to talk to yourself.
- Your diagnostic summaries include, “This patient is almost as messed up as I am”, and that doesn’t really bother you.
- You suddenly start believing there is no such thing as counter-transference.
- Your patient was yelling and calling you names for the first 3o minutes of the session, and you found it vaguely interesting that the patient didn’t seem to have any capacity for emotional expression.
- 4 hour lunch breaks
- A colleague tells you the following joke, “How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? . . . Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change!” , and after you hear the joke you seriously cannot imagine why your colleague thinks a light bulb can have motivation since it’s an inanimate object.
