“The Joy of Practicing What We Preach: Embracing Self-Care in Psychotherapy” offered by Sharon Gold-Steinberg, Ph.D., Carryn Lund, LMSW, RYT, and the Partners in Healing “Community Band” (because we all need a little help from our friends!)

Psychotherapists, professionals who devote themselves to caring for the emotional well-being of others, often miss the joy of providing the same level of care and nourishment for themselves. While growing up, many therapists discovered that they had a sensitivity and perceptiveness about the needs and emotions of others. Families often appreciate, reinforce, or co-opt these gifts and unwittingly contribute to a pattern in which the budding therapist develops a habit of prioritizing the needs of others over her or his own. Gender and cultural socialization, as well as the demands of juggling family life and career, can further exacerbate this imbalance. Similarly, working in solo practice, or in a busy clinic setting behind closed doors, can inculcate a sense of isolation while doing work that is intensely relational.

Providing optimal psychotherapy services to clients, without burning out or succumbing to vicarious traumatization, requires consistent and effective self-regulation, energy modulation, support, and boundary setting. Practicing psychotherapy relies on the use of one’s self as a primary instrument for resonance, attunement, containment, compassion, play, and the cultivation of inspiration and hope. Therefore, we need effective tools and a sense of community to help us to be resourced in our work and to know how to set aside our work so that we can refresh our own spirits and nervous systems.

This refreshing day-long workshop will review the research on therapist self-care and vicarious traumatization while providing reflective and experiential exercises to resource psychotherapists. We’re not just going to talk about therapist self-care, we are going to embrace it through borrowing the wisdom of contemplative practices and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy as taught by Pat Ogden, Ph.D. and Janina Fisher, Ph.D. Therapists will learn and practice evidence-based interventions, including mindfulness, breath work, art, music, and gentle movement to enhance affect regulation and their ability to set boundaries with their clients and around their work hours. Therapists can benefit directly from these strategies and model them for their clients. No previous experience with any of these modalities is required—come as you are, dress comfortably for the day, and prepare to integrate new strategies in a supportive setting amongst colleagues!