Self-care refers to monitoring one’s own physical, psychological, social, and spiritual welfare when working with clients. When we are our best, we are most effective in helping clients, however to be at our best we must take care of ourselves. Lack of self-care (i.e. self-neglect) leads to distress, professional burnout, vicarious traumatisation, burnout and impaired professional competence.
While research has stated that approximately 15% of individuals who work in a therapeutic area suffer from burnout at some point during their career (Boisaubin & Levine, 2001) the importance of self-care isn’t a concept that is discussed all that much. More often than not all research and teachings focus on the client’s well-being and ensuring …show more content…
In addition to the above theory on self-care, Orem (1991) proposed the theory of self-care, it’s a conceptual theory that emphasises the importance of the individual (i.e. the therapist) taking initiative and performing self-care actions on their own behalf. It states that these actions should be performed for a duration of time and should be done using valid methods and actions. While this theory is discusses self-care in nurses it is applicable to therapy as both professions require working with people who are …show more content…
Individual focus is the first stage, where the therapist focuses wholly on the personal aspects on the client. The second component is problem focus, where the focus is on why the client is in therapy. The next component is family focus, which is quite flexible in its definition as family refers to different things to people. Mutuality focus tries to position the client and therapist on in an even position, it also examines how clients react to their therapists as it’s can be used to examine how the client develops relationships with others. Interviewer focus is when a therapist could offer information about themselves. The final component is cultural/environmental/context focus. This is when the therapist discusses community and upbringing and how they impact the client, the aim, to gather a deeper and more meaningful understanding in regards to the