The Mental Emotional Health Blog

I was at a Perkins restaurant over the weekend, enjoying a slice of French Silk Pie. Then I found myself annoyed at two people that had just arrived and were a few tables over from where I was sitting. They weren’t loud or verbally obnoxious. But they were standing at their table for the entire 10-15 minutes or so before their food arrived. I honestly don’t know why it bothered me. I just kept thinking “Would you please sit down?!”

So being the therapist I am, I started exploring why it bothered me. I reviewed recent days briefly, and the overall situation of my family, my job, and my life. After processing all that, I have concluded that the two people just annoyed me and it wasn’t me displacing my own stuff onto them.

I wonder if they always stand around at restaurants. At least it didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the French Silk Pie.

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.