Insights into a Clinical Psychologist's Personal Mental Health Practices

Have you ever wondered how psychologists cope with the stress arising from their professional and personal lives? What practices do they follow for the upkeep of their own mental health, and can you also employ these techniques?

If you are looking for answers to these questions, you have arrived at the right place. In this article, we’ll take you through some mental wellness practices adopted by clinical psychologists on a personal basis.

Your mental health counselor is a sensitive individual just like you and can be prone to anxiety, stress, and depression. Moreover, with the profession of clinical psychology, an additional concern arises: that of transference and countertransference, i.e., when the psychologist or the client subconsciously relates to someone from their past relationships.

With their extensive knowledge and deep understanding of the mind, they are better equipped to handle situations than we laypersons are. There are multiple techniques that clinical psychologists adopt to keep things going smoothly in terms of their mental health. We’ll explore some of them here.

It may sound like a truism, but the good old saying “a healthy mind resides in a healthy body” never loses its relevance. Apart from conventional wisdom, it has been repeatedly attested through scientific evidence that physical exercise and a healthy diet positively influence your mental well-being.

A study of 489 young adults aged 18–35 concluded that a higher level of physical activity is correlated with psychological well-being. This can be a motivating factor for you to get some exercise daily.

As your psychologist is well aware of the workings of the human body, they do appreciate the importance of including some physical activity in their daily routine, and you can also do the same!

Coming to the diet part, there is a whole domain of study dedicated to it called nutritional psychiatry. It deals with the effect of food choices on mental health and how you can tweak your diet for better mental health. Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and antioxidants can improve brain function and protect against the onset of conditions like dementia. Here, the Mediterranean diet can be a good option to go with, as it contains the above-stated nutrients in the form of vegetables, whole grains, fish, and olive oil.

“What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?" wrote W.H. Davies, a Welsh poet, in the opening lines of his poem titled Leisure. An opportunity to pause and indulge in our interests can effectively replace the luxury of standing and staring, given our busy lives and the modern world. Cultivating hobbies can make you happier, improve your mood, and promote a sense of satisfaction. Just like you, psychologists can have a variety of interests, both in their professional and personal lives.

What you can gather from here is the importance of taking some time from work to engage in activities that you find fulfilling and relaxing. It can be anything from gardening to having a discussion with others on something that you care about.

Good friends can undoubtedly uplift your mood, and this holds true irrespective of your profession. Meaningful social connections have been linked to improved symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and can increase the chances of survival in the case of cancer.

As we are programmed to stay in touch with others, social isolation can take a toll on both our physical and mental health. Though your average clinical psychologist likely sees a handful of patients daily and listens empathetically to their problems, they too need someone to lend an ear to them.

The benefits of yoga and meditation are known to all—they help to calm the mind, reduce anxiety and depression, help you grow spiritually, and promote overall wellness. According to Dr. Catrin Williams, a forensic psychologist, yoga is much more than the physical act of touching your toes or standing on your head; it combines focus, connection between the mind and the body, and control and regulation.

Similarly, meditation has positive effects on psychological wellness and has been shown to improve emotional intelligence and promote a positive attitude toward perceived stress. According to a 2017 survey, meditation has been gaining popularity in the US. According to it, the percentage of adults who engaged in some form of meditation in the past year increased by three times compared to 2012.

Meditation and yoga are recommended as complementary therapies along with conventional treatment for anxiety and depression, which indicates psychologists’ belief in their effectiveness. Incorporating them into your lifestyle may help you achieve overall wellness.

While people generally perceive psychology and philosophy as two distinct domains, do you know there’s a practice that combines the two? It is called philosophical counseling and involves understanding and solving a person’s psychological problems through philosophical insights and discussions. As it approaches the problems from a non-medicinal perspective, it may provide clinical psychologists with a fresh outlook on their personal problems.

If you are a philosophically inclined individual, you may also gain a better understanding of your situation and relations with the outside world through philosophical inquiry.

Clinical psychologists may deal with difficult cases and not achieve the desired results even after putting in their best efforts. This can lead to feelings of frustration and questions about their own competency. While a little self-criticism is good, too much of it can get debilitating and affect someone’s professional productivity and self-esteem.

To get out of this, a good mental health counselor understands and accepts their limitations. This can help them make better use of their strengths and provide a realistic picture of the prognosis to patients or their close ones.

A clinical psychologist needs to understand and establish certain boundaries while dealing with their clients. For this, they need to be professional, discuss the issues at hand with their colleagues and the patient, and keep a record of any instances of these boundaries being violated.

This helps them avoid any ethical or legal issues and maintain an objective outlook on the patient’s condition, which in turn reflects positively on their mental health.

Having covered the ways a psychologist may adopt to keep their mental health in good shape, let’s look at the tough part of their profession.

Though a rewarding job, clinical psychology can sometimes be taxing on the mental health of its practitioners. Here, we’ll cover some aspects of the mental health profession that prompt psychologists to adopt the self-care measures that we covered earlier.

Mental health professionals frequently deal with negative emotions, fears, and perspectives of others and try to transform them into something less harmful and more constructive. It can sometimes affect them personally, as they may not always be able to put up an emotional guard. While therapists may feel a sense of accomplishment for successfully helping someone with signs of depression or other emotional problems, events of relapse and failed interventions can make them question their roles.

It means imagining yourself in a situation that you have not personally experienced but have seen others facing. Vicarious traumatization can have a negative impact on the mental health of clinical psychologists, not only impacting their professional capacity but also their personal lives. For example, interacting with someone struggling with depression due to certain factors in their life may trigger the counselor to obsess over those factors and possibly get anxious about the same.

A psychologist with a private practice has to deal with a lot of paperwork involving bills, insurance, and taxes, especially if they have just started and don’t have an assistant. They may also need to focus on marketing themselves and securing a customer base through the use of social media or by maintaining contacts with other health professionals. All this adds to the workload of mental health professionals in private practice and can be a source of stress for them.

Good mental wellness practices are beneficial for everyone, no matter whether they are healthcare professionals or not. However, methods that have the support of psychologists frequently inspire greater confidence in their efficacy, which benefits your emotional health.

The six mental health practices that we covered here can be easily included in your self-care routine. But if you are experiencing signs of depression, anxiety attacks, or any other psychological issue, see a mental health professional and follow their advice promptly before getting to these techniques.