Why are private practice therapists vulnerable to burnout, what are the signs they need to look out for - and how can they avoid it happening? In this interview, clinical psychologist and author, Dr Claire Plumbly, defines burnout and describes the warning signs that may appear in the therapeutic relationship. We discuss the factors that make therapists particularly vulnerable to burnout and what not to say to help them.

Takeaways:

• What's the official definition of burnout?
• How to recognise burnout
• How factors such as perfectionism, high standards and the desire to help add to workplace pressure on therapists
• Why private practice can make burnout more likely
• How to make private practice more sustainable
• What to do when burnout begins to appear

Dr Claire Plumbly is a clinical psychologist in private practice and the author of Burnout: How to Manage Your Nervous System Before It Manages You.

You can download Claire's free burnout formulation tool HERE (normally retails at £6)

For Claire's website including details of her book, speaking and burnout resources go to https://drclaireplumbly.com or for her therapy practice: https://plum-psychology.co.uk

To access Good Enough Counsellors: Backstage and Claire's description of the 5 P's model for preventing burnout in therapy practice, please go to: https://patreon.com/goodenoughcounsellors

You can also find me here:

The Good Enough Counsellors Facebook Group

Josephine Hughes on Facebook

Josephine Hughes on YouTube

My website: josephinehughes.com

Setting up in private practice? Download my free checklist HERE

Need ideas for how to get clients? Download my free handout 21 Ways for Counsellors to Attract New Clients HERE

Keywords: therapist burnout, burnout in private practice, counsellor burnout, preventing therapist burnout, signs of burnout, Dr Claire Plumbly, Good Enough Counsellors, Josephine Hughes, therapist wellbeing, counsellor wellbeing, burnout prevention, compassion fatigue, therapist self-care, setting boundaries in private practice, perfectionism in therapists, therapist imposter syndrome, financial anxiety in private practice, sustainable private practice, running a counselling practice, private practice therapists, mental health professionals, nervous system and burnout, work life balance for therapists, therapist exhaustion

The information contained in Good Enough Counsellors is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this podcast are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this podcast. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this podcast.

Josephine Hughes disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this podcast.

We go into this job because we want to often, well, amongst many reasons, but we want to be able to help and make a difference.

And so we can get pulled into those psychological drives that can exacerbate any burnout tendencies.

Like, you know, we have certain perfectionist standards.

We get very enmeshed with that desire to help people.

And that's what the research says, is that those passion led roles, you can struggle to help that person with burnout by just saying you need to do yes.

Welcome to Good Enough Counsellors, the podcast for growing a private practice without the pressure to be perfect.

I'm Josephine Hughes, counsellor and creator of Therapy Growth Group, helping you get the clients you want and create the practice of your dreams.

Today I'm talking to Dr. Clare Plumbley about something I think is particularly important when we're running our own private practices and that's burnout.

Claire is a clinical psychologist who's been in independent practice for 10 years and is the author of how to manage your nervous system before it manages you.

That's going to be interesting to talk about that.

We're going to explore what burnout actually is, why we might be vulnerable to it as therapists and what we can do to build private practices that are sustainable for us as well as the people we work with.

Clare, welcome to Good Enough Counsellors podcast.

Thank you for having me.

I'm really pleased to be here.

It's lovely to meet you.

I thought we might start.

Actually, I'm going to tell you a little story.

To begin with, when I was thinking about burnout and that was when I first started as a therapist in private practice.

I've been going for about a year and at the time I was managing my clients, I had another part time job.

My children were teenagers, so I was managing a busy family and I was probably a little bit perimenopausal as well.

And one day I turned up to see this client and she took one look at me and she said, oh my goodness, what are they doing to you?

Interesting that she's the one who caught it.

I think that's a really interesting story because it is how a lot of people go into private practice, isn't it?

Very rarely does someone just launch in and build up a nice caseload slowly and like there aren't any other stresses.

Quite often you're kind of making that decision like, can I make this work enough to trust that I can let go of my other paid employment?

Yeah, so you've already got a pressure there that's Good to just name I think.

And yeah, and often we aren't brand new in our careers.

I mean some people will go into it earlier on but yes, you might already have those extra responsibilities like you've just said.

So.

Yeah.

So do you think it's, you know, that we could do that?

We get caught up with meeting so many needs that we just sort of ignore our own.

Definitely.

I mean we, yeah, we, we go into this job because we want to often.

Well, amongst many reasons.

But we want to be able to help and make a difference.

And so yeah, we, we can get pulled into those psychological drives that can exacerbate any burnout tendencies.

Like, you know, you have certain perfectionist standards, wishes to, you know, we get very enmeshed with that desire to help people and that's what the research says, is that those passion led roles, you can struggle to help that person with burnout by just saying you need to do less because it triggers lots of worry thoughts or mindset things around, you know, but then the guilt sets in or shame or you know, I'm not good enough and I can't just rest and all of this.

So actually you need to be aware that these underneath drivers are there and it's not as simple as just having too much to do and not enough time to do it.

Although obviously we know that is a key stressor.

Yeah, it's, it's just really interesting.

We'll, I think we'll circle back to this in a minute because I think probably, well we.

Quite good.

Just to clarify what we mean by burnout as well.

How would you define it?

Yeah, so burnout is in the, the World Health Organization and their definition is that it's not a psychiatric disorder, but it is a mental health diagnosis, but it's a syndrome.

So it's three co occurring things and they are.

One is physical and emotional exhaustion, which I think most people kind of intuitively understand to be what burnout is.

So physical exhaustion, obviously, you know, just feeling really tired, not enough just to kind of pick yourself up after a day off.

And emotional exhaustion, the way I describe it often to my clients is if you think about the big rainbow of possible emotions that we should be able to experience as humans, quite often we're just getting the rubbish ones.

Overwhelmed, irritable, low, hopeless.

We're not seeing much of a look in with the kind of feeling joyful, feeling passionate, feeling content.

So that's the first dimension.

The second one is feeling detached, becoming a bit detached from what you're doing, disengaged so you might start to feel like I'm just going through the motions.

It sounds like that is definitely what you were describing in your story at the start.

Like just going through the motion, doing my part time job, going and doing the kids childcare, just turning up to see the client.

So yeah, we kind of struggle to care as much.

This is the compassion fatigue you hear people talk about.

And that can be in and of itself a distressing dimension to have because we are a caring profession and that's part of our identity.

So it can be a bit distressing to, you know, allow ourselves to recognize that.

And then the third dimension of the definition is that we have reduced personal accomplishment.

So we're not, you know, maybe we are cutting corners.

Maybe your session plans aren't all singing and dancing anymore and your notes are just kind of a few lines now, or you're not managing to send those emails after the session that you said you'd send.

Like you're starting to make mistakes, drop balls, you're not as sharp, you're getting kind of.

I, I know a lot of people talk about like that kind of fogginess, so this can all go alongside it, but part of the definition is that it comes from unmanaged, chronic unmanaged occupational stress.

And I think when we then consider that definition, it's easy to see the kind of chronic unmanaged occupational stress in terms of the NHS because it's such a big organization and they're so clunky to move and quite often they're expecting, you know, a lot, a lot from therapists and don't.

Well, my personal experience was I didn't feel like they met my needs in a way that I needed.

But we've got to create our own organizational structure in independence practice and we're not taught how to do that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Because that was, that's sort of like part of my, one of my next questions actually is there's nobody to set the limits for us, is there?

So, yeah, you know, how can we, how can we recognize.

Well, we've talked about, you know, the signs of stress, but what sort of things do we need to look out for in our, in our private practice?

What are the sort of risk factors for some burnout?

Yeah, I mean, you can't get burnout without there having been stress, but you can have stress without it leading up to burnout.

So obviously, what are your personal indications of stress?

What your red flags for stress?

You know, quite often in therapy we will break that down, especially, you know, I've got CBT background.

We might break it down into the cognitive like signs, the kind of emotional signs, the physiological signs and then what you end up doing often as a way of coping with all of that, which are the behavioral signs.

So for me when I've had kind of started to.

Towards a bit of high functioning burnout in my life, my behavioral signs that I start to buy tons of quick cheap courses because my brain's like I just, this will be the thing that fixes me.

And I've had, literally I've had lots of kind of like course I've paid for and never got around to watching because of course I didn't have the time for them.

They weren't going to magic me more time.

Yeah.

So how's your Amazon basket?

And you know, an extra glass of wine at night to switch your brain off.

Those are the kind of things I might slip into.

And my eczema flares up.

So my physiological signs of eczema and I get tension along back of my neck and up to my head.

So you know, what are your personal little kind of physiological tells?

I think I was beginning to reach it earlier this year actually because I went down with shingles and that's so unusual for me to be ill. And then I just kept getting cold after cold.

So I think those were my sort of physiological signs.

Absolutely.

Fortunately I went away on holiday and had a really, really good break and that, that really helped me actually so I felt better after.

Well done.

I'm glad you noticed that.

But that's so true.

Yeah.

And I think the body does take longer to recover when we've chronic stress because that, that, that load, the allostatic load on our, on us is just too much.

You know we're, we're not designed to be in, in our sympathetic nervous system for too long and we get that fair wear and tear where you know, impacts on our ability to recover cognitively.

For me I'm just going to name a few of mine.

I'll start to think I'm a rubbish therapist.

I'll start to feel a bit hopeless that anything could change.

I struggle to remember session content.

So well like I, I'm quite, I've got quite a good memory but then I feel therefore less connected to my clients or like a sense so.

Or you know, I'm just going to say it sometimes I.

Then I start to a little bit towards boredom as well.

So I know that this is not about, you know, when it's a theme like that.

It's not about the client.

It's about me and what's happening to me and that, you know, I'm starting to just edge down that road into too much because I've gone from, you know, maybe just being engaged with my work to being a bit disengaged with my work.

I talk to a lot of therapists and I definitely can recognize what you're, you're talking about.

I mean things like, I mean do you think it's sort of things like people find it more difficult to write their notes, for example, you know, they might lose that sort of energy in, in doing those sort of admin tasks.

I think that's something that I notice people talking about, for example.

And I think it's quite interesting to hear you talk about that sense of compassion fatigue as well and to realize that that's actually about burnout because I think it's so easy to take it.

Oh God, what's wrong with me?

You know.

Yeah, I'm not caring about my clients without realizing that actually it's a sign.

Of burnout and I think it, it's not going to be like one of these things on it their own are a sign, you know, but I think these are the kind of things you could be listening out for and you know, just you know, seeing if they fall within those three dimensions.

And you know, there are self assessment tools as well.

The one I wanted to recommend is the professional quality of life one pro qual you can get that you can access online for free.

It's a bunch of questions.

It just walks you through super simple self assessment and you can look at your results or it can email it you and it and it helps you differentiate, differentiate between burnout and vicarious trauma.

And, and, and actually ethically we do have a duty I think to keep well not just me.

It is written in certain to the HCPC standards to be double checking ourselves every so often.

So we've obviously talked about the sort of signs of burnout.

Actually just before I move on is sleep something else?

I sudden that suddenly came to me as well.

Sleeping less.

Does that totally matter as well?

Yeah, I think sleep's a good one.

I mean I find a lot of my clients who are burned out will be so full on in the day they literally just crash into bedtime without any Runway into bedtime.

And I was talking to someone doing a podcast actually a health professional who knows about this stuff but still struggles and admitted, you know, they sit with their desk, sorry their computer on their lap in bed and will fall asleep with the computer still open.

And then we'll wake up and just think, oh, my computer, great.

I don't need to get up.

I could just carry on working, working.

And she kind of knows all of that, but those are the boundaries we need to build in for ourselves.

And, you know, obviously that's great.

She's falling asleep, so.

But it's not great that she's not got any work life boundaries.

And I find you get that tired but wired experience.

Yes.

Which, you know, your brain's still on, your body's completely exhausted, but you're getting all those worry thoughts about the day or the dread feeling.

Yeah.

And I think that's when I sometimes get posts into my good Enough counsellors group last thing at night because someone sort of like, can't get it out of their head.

So they post in there.

Yeah.

So I guess that thing about, you know, working late and being on your computer, is that something to do with the fact that we just care so much?

Do you think that it's really difficult to stop that?

Almost, in a way, the sort of passion for the work that we do is like almost fueling the burnout.

For me, there's always something I could be doing because my business is my baby.

So it's a little bit like, for me, I've got three kids and then I've got this fourth, which is the business.

And I hadn't expected that.

I think it's good to prime people to know that actually when you run your own practice, you cared really deeply about all of it, not just the client work, but, you know, running a really, you know, professional service from beginning to end of the client journey.

That's certainly how I feel.

And so I feel like I've nailed the, you know, the middle bit, which is, you know, learning the professional skills I need to do my therapy and have my supervision in.

But there's almost always other things around that, like, I could be tinkering with and improving on.

I could be writing a blog post or a social media post or, you know, doing outreach for a podcast or, you know, like writing another book.

Like there's.

For me, it's grown and grown and grown and I love all of it.

And it.

And also that stuff gives variety, which, yeah, is really helpful because you can get this kind of monotonous burnout, which is just about doing the same old, same old.

So it's, it's both protective, but also you have to have boundaries built in and private practice doesn't have that.

You have to create your own boundaries, whereas Certainly when I first worked in the nhs, you know, there was no, no question that I could log on at home and carry on working because I couldn't log on at home.

Yeah.

So you sort of had that boundary with.

Was built in.

Whereas we've actually.

I think I agree with you.

It is a lovely.

When you're doing things like blogging and podcasting and writing and stuff like that is a lovely creative endeavor.

And it's.

There's a variety there as well.

But it's more difficult to stop, I think, because it is.

I mean, I find this.

It's just fun.

It doesn't feel like work.

Yeah.

It's not like the client work.

That feels more like work.

Quite often you're learning something new and like, I'll go down a rabbit hole and read papers and I'm like, it's a bit of cpd, but it's all around the stuff that you're really interested in, rather than just having to do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's difficult to stop, isn't it?

So I was just sort of wondering, what sort of things do you think go through people's heads with regards to clients that might lead to burnout?

What sort of things do you think we're telling ourselves, like you mentioned earlier on, you said about perfectionism.

Oh, yeah.

Or the sort of mindset things.

Do you think we're FAC therapists?

I. Yeah, I think we just have very high standards for ourselves.

Quite often I do find, like, also imposter syndrome will show up.

You know, I find, like, I just want to keep.

Keep on, like, studying this, getting the next cpd, and then I'll have the answer.

And so that can be really difficult because actually, you know, you are good enough.

Sorry, just riff off the title of your wonderful podcast.

But that, that, that is true, but I think we really struggle with good enough.

And so we're kind of.

CPD is built in, isn't it?

We're meant to be doing our cpd, but I think it creates this constant feeling that we aren't.

You know, I haven't arrived yet.

And.

And also I think the emphasis on learning those skills for clinically and not understanding that actually learning the skills to business manage is also a really good use of our time.

All the stuff around.

It has been the steepest learning curve for me in the last few years since I've, you know, run my own private practice and then started to have associates.

And I actually really enjoy reading business books and doing courses.

But yeah, I think I do notice that tension with a lot of people where they don't realize how much they need to do that or invest in themselves so that they can, you know, have all the information they need about what resources I might benefit from.

Like, a simple example of that is that I recently read Profit first, and that is massively made a massive difference to my mindset and planning around finances because I was always on this treadmill of feeling like I never had enough money in the bank.

And now simply, it's not changed how much I've got coming in doesn't change, but how I organize my money has.

So that mindset there has really helped me to feel more confident.

And that means I don't have that kind of mindset of not enough.

I don't have the scarcity mindset as a result, which fuels those unhelpful behaviors that can lead us further into burnout.

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that, actually, because I think there's that whole point part of private practice, which is the financial side of things and the worry behind it, isn't it?

Because I think it can be quite difficult if you're worrying about how much money you're bringing in to say no.

Yeah.

And not to take on, say, an extra client or not to try and squeeze a client in because it's like you're turning away an income.

And I think the other part of that is that we never know how long people are going to work with us.

And do you ever find you have those weeks where, you know, you'll have someone saying, oh, I'm going to finish this.

You know, they've come to the end and then another one cancels and then somebody else is ill and suddenly, you know, you end up with a week where, you know, half of your client list is not turned up for one reason or another.

And I think that that doesn't help.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, there's not going to be a magic answer to that.

But I do think trying to make sure you're pricing your services to allow for that is really important when you're forecasting to kind of be a bit almost like a forecast at a 75 or 80 capacity rather than 100.

Yeah.

So that you're not feeling like that.

And, you know, I.

In the last few years, I've been in private practice since 2017, and in the last two years, I've got much better at putting money as each month so that I can take a really good chunk in August off.

And so now I do have a proper annual leave of three weeks without losing a salary because I've got that saved up and I take it out of the work account in the same way that I always take my salary out the rest of the time.

But that took me ages to figure out how to do that and that, that I should do that.

But it changes that financial trap feeling of I need to keep working.

If I'm not working, I'm not earning.

Yeah.

But I think I know this is what you talk about, like trying to make sure you're like trying to focus on an area that you feel like you can specialize in, if you can, because that helps a little bit to attract those clients you want to work with.

And then you don't feel as much scarcity mindset around that, I think either, because I think they start to come and find you a bit more easily.

And setting up a referral network with a few people so that you can inter.

Refer.

Yeah, it's interesting to hear you say that because obviously I've been on your website and it's quite clear from there that burnout is what you work with and your books about burnout and obviously you've been going on podcasts talking about burnout as well.

So you're sort of carving out that niche and being sort of like a go to person when it comes to burnout.

Was there a particular reason why you chose to specialise in burnout?

Is it because of your own experience or was it something that you worked maybe a lot with in the NHS or you to this work?

I get.

I got more interested in it, yeah.

After Covid, yeah, I definitely experienced, like I said, that high function burnout.

And that's when I had that experience of like I had that monotonous burnout I mentioned, which was I was seeing 15 clients a week and not doing anything else in my private practice at that point.

It was literally seeing clients and it felt right, really like I felt under challenged in a way because it was always the same.

So that was a tricky experience.

And then on top of that, you know, the, the all the kind of, you know, homeworking.

I had three young kids and all of that.

And then also the kind of client load I had here in Taunton.

We're right near a big kind of large hospital, so quite a lot of medical staff and a lot of people, you know, beginning to use the word burnout.

And I was like, well, we hear that word burnout.

What actually, what actually is it?

And it's quite a new formalized term because it only started to be used in the, like more properly in the most recent edition of the ICD 11.

So which, you know, started to come through in 2019 and was properly formalized in 2022.

So that's when it started to kind of almost go up in terms of it being everywhere as a term.

I was researching it and, you know, felt like it did really fit and wanted to learn more about it and also give reading to my clients.

And the book that I.

The books that I was looking at were written by coaches or a research psychologist and they weren't written any by like with a clinical view and the kind of clinical models that we use.

And so I just thought maybe I should write a book with.

With the kind of models and things that I use in therapy that I can then, you know, recommend to my clients.

And.

And yeah, it was really fun to like, project to do.

Yeah, fantastic.

And I think it's worth just saying at this point that you've also got a lovely handout, haven't you, that could help therapists with clients who've got burnout.

Is that right?

Yes.

So that's been an evolution of my Think book came out.

So in the book I draw a lot on the psycho education.

In the early part I draw on polyvagal theory, which is all about physiological and psychological safety, which I became very familiar with because I'm trauma trained and an EMDR consultant.

And so it explains that difference between we're feeling calm when we're getting stressed and how the persistent being trapped in stress can tip us into that more disengaged shutdown place, which, you know, I just thought fitted really well for the dimensions of.

Of burnout.

And so I applied that model and then the CFT model, the compassion focused therapy model, for more kind of practical ways to manage it.

And then since then, the tool that I've kind of got is a marrying up of some of that thinking with like an occupational psychology tool by Bakaran Demaruti, which is a. I'll keep doing this my hands because it's a scales.

So they talk about burnout is caused in workplaces by too many external demands coming in and not enough resources to do the job.

So it's a nice simple visual.

And how I've just updated it is to bring in what I've discovered is also true, is that it can also be internal demands which the psychological drivers we've been talking about, like perfectionism, people pleasing, that enmeshed identity with your job and experiential avoidance, you know, when people use busyness to Avoid emotions.

We see that all the time, don't we?

So I've got that on that side of the weighing scale.

So I basically split it into external and internal demands and then I've done the same on the opposite side.

Internal and external resources.

So internal resources would be things like stress management tools, boundaries, knowing what they are and how to script them and say them and actually put them in place, deal with pushback, your values being connected with your values within an outside work, amongst other things.

And then the external resources are the practical things that I'm sure you.

I feel like you talk about a lot as well, because it's the stuff that I think therapists struggle with in independent practice because they have to put them in themselves.

But it is peer support, having places to go to, a pa, for example, who can do your admin, having a system and maybe a computer system that can automate stuff like your calendar appointments.

Like all of that just reduces that cognitive load and burden.

And so the Formulation tool, if anyone wants to download it, it's on my website for £6, but it's for free for the listeners.

You can just map out, you know, the document includes like examples you might want to think about for those four areas.

You can see where the areas that might need focus.

It's just a way of structuring that.

That's brilliant.

It sounds really useful.

I'll get the link and put it in the show notes for people.

So thank you.

They can download it.

Thank you.

Yeah, I just think it's really interesting because that's another thing I really wanted to.

To explore with you was about.

About that sort of nervous system side of things.

Yeah.

And because I've got absolutely wonderful supervisor and she's really helped me with my boundary setting because she said, you don't need to feel comfortable setting a boundary.

You can set the boundary even if you're feeling really guilty about it.

And it's really difficult because I think this.

There's so much going on inside us, isn't there?

And.

And telling someone, oh, you know, you just need to set your boundaries.

There's always that just.

Which I think is sort of interesting to listen out for, because actually setting boundaries can be really difficult.

What is it about, you know, looking after ourselves that we find so difficult?

And why is that?

Yeah, I mean, I think obviously our level of boundary setting comes from our rules of living, you know, rules for living around, you know, being worthy of boundaries.

What will happen if I put a boundary in.

In terms of the rupture that might happen.

Can I cope with that?

What will people think of me?

So wanting to kind of be held in high regard and yeah, I think also culturally we've also moved towards a shift in boundaries because of tech.

So we can now literally pick up our phone and start working wherever we are.

And so we set the expectation that we will respond quickly.

You know, if I send an email and someone doesn't reply for two days, I'm like, like oh my gosh, they've completely forgotten about me.

Whereas actually that's fairly reasonable two days or a day or whatever it is.

So our expectations have really shifted.

So yeah, I think knowing that guilt and anxiety are drivers that will show up and that we need to work out if we need to be listening to those or not because obviously our emotions can guide us and be provide useful information.

But I think probably the information here is that we've, you know, normalized overworking and so it's difficult culturally to, to therefore put a boundary in.

And so I' you know, as part of the boundary, as part of the burnout information that I've got for therapists, it includes a whole thing on boundaries because it's, that's a word that can be used with lots of different things around your finances, around your digital tech, around your self care time, around other people.

So it's helpful to work out which area you're going to try and work on first and just try a little bit.

But if anyone's listening to this and they're starting off going into private practice in their early days, definitely take the time to think about it early on because I think it's easier to set it up that way.

One example is that because I run an associate practice and quite a few of my psychology associates who come in are coming from the NHS and then haven't worked in private practice before.

And I always recommend that they try and have a clinic day and a set of set times in that day just as a starting off point, as a really simple boundary you can do for yourself because I think that helps you to not to know when your clinic is and it's really containing, I think for the client when you say, okay, I've got a 10 o' clock on a Monday or I've got a 3 o' clock on a Thursday and they can't just, you know, that's horrible.

And I the hairdresser and they're like, what time do you want your appointment?

I'm like, I don't know, you tell me what you've got available.

That's such a big question.

Yeah, yeah, I, I, I, I really, really agree with you because I think otherwise, you know, you're trying to, you fit people in here, there and everywhere and it, you know, having like a particular day that you put aside or an afternoon or something like that, it's contained for you as well and it makes it easier because you know what you're doing then too, and it's less.

I used to find, you know, I was dashing here, there and everywhere because I've seen people face to face.

So, you know, I'd go in for one appointment at 11 and then I'd go home and then I'd come back for another one at five and then I'd go off and have my dinner and then I'd come back.

And in fact, that little story that I told you, what I did actually do after that is I started giving myself a day off during the week and it was fantastic.

It made such a difference.

Yeah.

Was it actually a day off or was it a day off from clinic work out of interest?

No, I actually, I actually made myself take a day off.

So I said I'm not going to do any housework, I'm not going to do this shopping, you know, supermarket shopping, I'm going to go to yoga.

And, you know, until the kids came home, I would just have literally a day off.

It made such a difference to me.

It really did.

The other boundary I put in after a couple of years, which I wish I'd done earlier, was getting a separate work phone.

I just wish I'd done that much earlier because that was stressful not knowing if a phone call coming and I had to be my professional, you know, voice or if it thought it was just going to be like.

Yeah, you know, a mate.

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I think that that's another good one, isn't it?

One of the questions I've got is that sometimes we're sort of looking after ourselves sometimes almost like self care, it can become like another chore, can't it?

And I, I've certainly seen sort of people saying they feel almost resentful of the fact that they've got to do self care, which of course takes us into the sympathetic nervous system, doesn't it, rather than the, the parasympathetic.

Have you got any advice to help people?

Because it's almost like it becomes another chore, doesn't it?

And you know, is there a way of not it not being a chore or, you know, I don't know if you've got any ideas about that?

I mean self care for me is about compassionate decision making.

Like what do I, what do I need?

So I'm pacing myself and I like there's a model of rest.

There are different models of rest so it might be worth just taking a look.

I know the one I include in my book is the one I quite like by Susie reading or reading, I don't know to pronounce her name and she basically has got these eight pillars and she just talks about you know, what have you been involved in today or in the last, you know, few hours and at the opposite end of that pillar is like what you might need just to help direct you a little bit.

And so like you know, if you've been in focus, concentration for a while you might need something a bit like freer and to like lift up, like to not have focused direction.

If you've been on your own all day you might need to be connected and like something that is human connection.

So think about the basic human needs, needs and what that might, might look like.

And maybe that's a gentler approach as a kind of a big umbrella because I think often self care gets pigeon holders, bubble baths and you know, yoga sessions and stuff and, and it's hard to imagine how to fit all of that in.

So I think little, little and often a little bit like grazing, you know and eating your five fruit and veg gradually over the day rather than a big feast at the end of the day.

Like it's all healthy stuff isn't it?

But that working out is going to fit in for you.

Oh that's really helpful and yeah I might look that model up.

It sounds really useful.

Yeah, thank you for that.

So you know, if we've got someone who's, who's listening now and they're thinking to themselves oh you know, I think the way I've heard myself described in what you've been talking about, you know, perhaps that sense of boredom or detachment and you know, perhaps not sleeping well or something like that.

Where would you encourage them to start?

I mean if you can take that to supervision to start kind of getting a bit of extra support or if there's someone who is in your network who's kind of feels like a like low hanging fruit, like not a threatening person to go because I think we can feel very vulnerable and to know that you're not on your own, you know, can be really helpful because often we need to start problem solving and we struggle with accessing our kind of clear thinking for Problem solving.

When we're in that detached, closed down place and we're in that high, high highly stressed place, think just having someone else who can work out what's within our zone of control that we can start focusing on and what might be kind of longer term and because the, the, what I don't want to just say is, oh, we'll just clear the decks and don't cancel all your clients because I know that that's going to add more stress.

You need to do it in a way that feels kind of managed.

As soon as usually people have a bit of a plan, they tend to start to feel a little bit like, okay, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It's that unmanaged chronic workplace stress that causes it.

So it's not just about, about like reducing.

It was about, it's getting a plan so it feels managed again.

And yeah, I think trying to do that on your own sometimes can feel a little bit overwhelming.

But you know, sometimes I'll just get, when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed now, I'll get a big a four or a three piece of paper and I'll write the projects on that I've got and I'll write the to do's for them and some dates and suddenly it's out of my head and I start to begin to feel a little bit, I can see the map now.

Yeah, yeah, that's really helpful and I think that it's really interesting to hear you say, you know, don't just cancel everything because that in itself can be another stressor, can't it?

Yeah, yeah.

To manage it.

And, and, but equally if you do.

Need to just do it, you know, I'm not saying you mustn't, but I just know that in private practice that's a highly stressful thing to hear and it might be that you need to pace yourself and maybe you know, say to some clients, I'm doing fortnightly sessions for three months or something like that.

You know, there are people really respect when you put in a boundary more than I think what they're going to, you know, they can cope and you can, you can say no.

This is what we've trained for.

We've been training for you to kind of take a bit more time to, to manage on your own.

These are the skills.

You can plan for them to have those like little gaps.

So it is possible if that is what you need.

But if you can't work that out, how to do that, definitely have those conversations in supervision so that you can, you know, get it in place so you're not trying to do it on your own.

Oh, brilliant.

Claire, thank you so much for coming along and talking to us about burnout.

It's been really interesting just to explore what it actually is and to think about what might cause it and how and practical ways that we can handle it as well.

Because I think this is a really sort of practical.

Been a really practical session for people, so hopefully that will support them.

Yeah, thank you.

And I popped everything in the show notes and we can find.

Just remember, remind us of your website so people can find you.

I've got two.

So my main one for my speaking work in the book is www.drclaireplumbly.com and then if you're interested in exploring the associate practice or, you know, have someone you think might benefit from a referral, then it's www.plum-psychology.co.uk Brilliant.

Thank you very much.

And I'll put both of those in the show notes again.

So thank you so much for coming along, Claire.

Thank you.

Thanks.

There's actually a little bit more from Claire that I haven't included in today's episode.

It's the the five P's for Preventing Burnout.

And she also kindly explained these to me as well.

So what I've done with those is they are in my private podcast, the Backstage Pass.

If you'd like to listen to that and hear other episodes of the private podcast.

I'm going to put details of the Backstage Pass into the show notes.

Thanks so much for listening and I will see you next week.

Thanks for listening.

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I really believe you can do it.