Intentional Therapist subscriber survey – Self-care barriers

A huge thank you to everyone who responded to our annual subscriber survey!

This information helps us ensure our content remains meaningful to our subscribers and allows us to share the experiences and reflections of respondents more broadly with the Intentional Therapist community. Because connecting with other female mental health clinicians is such a key component of our self-care, as it normalizes our shared experiences and offers opportunities to benefit from the collective wisdom of and support from an amazing group of women.

With that in mind, we’d like to share some of the reflections about self-care barriers that were shared with us on this year’s survey.

Some of the barriers women shared included:

• Putting “everyone and everything” ahead of their own needs
• Getting stuck in “human giver” mode
• Guilt (in fact, GUILT)
• Being pulled in multiple directions from the demands of multiple roles
• Difficulty prioritizing self-care

From our perspective, many (if not all) of these barriers have their origins in our socialization as women and mental health clinicians. While it’s important to appreciate the influence of our socialization, it is also incredibly important for us to pause and regularly reflect on the contributions we make as women and mental health clinicians. Because the world would suffer if we were to collectively walk away from these roles! And the only real way for us to remain in these incredibly important roles is to find space for ourselves in the midst of helping others.

More barriers that women shared included:

• Overscheduling
• Overestimating what they can do (“ego keeps trying to claim I can do it all”)
• The “urge” to check another thing of their to-do-list
• Self-criticism during “downtime”

A common theme with these types of barriers may be related to what we call the “student mindset”, where we’ve become accustomed to working long hours to meet the rigorous academic demands in university or college. These habits may have served us well in school and tricked our ego that we can do it all, but the reality is this pace is not sustainable in the longer term. But let’s face it, we were (and likely continue to be ) heavily reinforced for these work habits and our egos can be incredibly convincing (and ignore the fact that we have multiple other responsibilities added to our plate since we were students!). The reality is, we cannot do it all - and, that’s okay.

As for the last category of barriers:

• “Procrastination”
• Difficulties staying “consistent”

Here's the thing: Striving for “consistency” in a rigid sense has the potential to set us up for failure and self-criticism. There will always be ebbs and flows in our work and personal lives and ideally our self-care will adapt to our current reality. That means self-care will still be part of our day but won’t necessarily look the same every day or every week. Having a range of self-care strategies that require differing amounts of time and energy can help us better adapt to our current circumstances.

“Procrastination” is an especially tricky one because there can be so many factors contributing to us delaying our self-care. An important consideration with this, however, is how this term can also feed into self-criticism versus self-compassion. According to the Meriam-Webster dictionary: “procrastinate implies blameworthy delay, especially through laziness or apathy.” Hardly the words we’d use to describe the amazing female mental health clinicians we know! And hardly the words that move us closer to self-compassion.

So, as you reflect on your own barriers to self-care please consider their origins and remember that you are not alone. Sharing the barriers we face is an incredibly important component in the journey to meaningful self-care, as it’s a powerful reminder of our common humanity and a key component of self-compassion.

In an upcoming newsletter we’ll share what respondents identified as some of their biggest self-care shifts or wins. But until then, please always remember, the struggle is real and you’re not alone.

Where will your reflactions take you?