Our work as mental health professionals is so valuable but comes with unique personal challenges to manage.
Most psychologists, psychotherapists, health professionals and life coaches start off their career with the intention of wanting to help improve life for others. While it is a great privilege to be of service to others, this work brings with it enormous demands on many levels. In order to meet these demands, it is essential for the professional helpers to embark on their own inner journey of personal development and healing.
We can only ever support our clients to the level of our own inner growth and development as this forms the ceiling that determines to what extent we can be helpful. Our life experiences, just as for our clients, have also shaped the extent to which we operate out of previously acquired survival-based coping strategies or integrated and life-affirming choices. In order to be able to stay present and regulated in the face of our clients’ painful sensations and life experiences, we need to be able to self-regulate, soothe and look after ourselves.
We can only be of authentic service when we have ourselves been nourished
Our ability to care for our clients needs to flow from an inner place of well-nourished resources rather than scarcity. This will enable us to sustain and maintain our well-being, compassionate mind and inner strength while undertaking the valuable work with our clients.
Professional training courses often encourage self-reflection and possibly the use of more traditional talking therapies for specific problems. They rarely encourage professional helpers to commit to their own path of on-going personal development, healing and consciousness expansion.
Dr Claudia Herbert is deeply committed to her own and other people’s personal and professional development paths and understands the demands that therapeutic work places on mental health professionals.
I am aware of the stressors existing in current mental health care services with an over-emphasis on performance targets shaped by an effectiveness-driven market environment. This frequently leaves little time for reflection, personal development and more integrative, embedded mental healthcare practice. Psychologists and health professionals may feel undervalued, overworked and not utilised to their full potential. They may feel compassion-fatigue or overwhelmed by the relentlessness of the demands placed on them.
Bespoke one-to-one and group work for psychologists, psychotherapists, mental health professionals and life coaches.
Dr Herbert’ approach is different. She can empower you in the work you do, offering a number of bespoke services to psychologists, psychotherapists and mental health care professionals. These include specialist individual or group supervision and bespoke personal development work.
I hope that I can inspire you and would love to support you with your personal or professional development needs. You can contact me on my dedicated therapy and personal growth website.