The New Social Worker Vol. 19, No. 4, Fall 2012 | Page 10
a process that can be engaged to restore
balance in our personal and professional
lives. That cure is self-care.
Self-Care as the Antidote to
Burnout
Lately, there has been increased
attention on the concept of self-care—
the balancing activities in which social
workers can engage to preserve personal
longevity and happiness, their relationships, and their careers. These activities
of self-care span a wide range and can include: receiving support from mentors or
a peer group, the importance of relaxation
(including vacations), personal endeavors
that are non-professional activities, and
the need to balance wellness with one’s
professional life.
By engaging in self-care, we can assert our right to be well and reintroduce
our own needs into the equation. Hearing this call may be a difficult first step,
as social workers might feel guilt about
needing to take care of ourselves—especially since, as was pointed out previously,
mental health workers are more likely to
“come from chaotic families of origin”
where they adopted codependent/parenting roles.
In a study comparing psychotherapists and physicists, psychotherapists were
significantly more likely to perceive themselves as assuming a care-taking role than
were physicists (Fussell & Bonney, 1990).
The same study showed that psychotherapists also experienced significantly more
parent-child role inversion (parentification) than did the physicists. This does not
mean that the caregiver choice of career
is a negative thing; it can be a healthy and
healing choice, once we recognize the
need to engage in self-care. When we do
embrace self-care, we find many different strategies at our disposal that span the
entire gamut of human experience. There
are self-care solutions in the emotional,
physical, social, intellectual, sexual, and
spiritual dimensions of life that underscore our humanity.
There have been several attempts
to categorize self-care strategies, notably:
Mahoney (1997) and Norcross (2000).
Norcross outlines 10 self-care strategies,
including seemingly obvious—yet incredibly valuable—pieces of advice, such as
recognizing the hazards of psychological
practice and beginning with self-awareness and self-liberation. Three of Nor-
8
The New Social Worker
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