YOUR HEALTH
Spirit
Care of the
Spirit
Clinical Psychologist Charlie Hallings-Potts explains why we all need to take care of our spirits…
T
HERE was never any real divide between us and our clients. There were times when we may have muttered or prayed under our breath, ‘There, but for the Grace of God go I.’ Now more than ever, given the painful spasms and contractions of the world over the last few years, we might truly acknowledge we are all in it together. This blurring around the edges of the client/therapist relationship makes it even more important that we take the time to look after ourselves as therapists. This has always been important. In fact, I would suggest that self-care and the avoidance of burn-out has never been more vital. No client wants to go to a session and feel they have heard or felt more about their therapist’s issues than their own. Optimism and faith in systems, and therefore their ability to restore balance and peace, has fallen foul of the decades’ worth of change occurring in the health and geopolitical arenas and the news pumped in through our phones and TVs on a minute by minute basis. Our clients might look to us for reassurance but we have been fully immersed in the uncertainties ourselves.
The wounded healer There is a trope of the ‘wounded healer’ from the Greek myth of Chiron. This recognises that although some might not like to admit it, a large proportion of us in the ‘caring professions’ are on some level attempting to heal our clients’ wounds in order to - or indeed instead of healing our own.
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HOLISTIC THERAPIST 2022
holistictherapistmagazine.com
