Perspectives on Self-Care

Self-care for clinicians is much needed. To discover ways to implement self-care into our lives, we (four therapists) tried different self-care methods over a span of one to two weeks. After using practices that explored self-care through mindfulness meditation, autohypnosis, music, and spirituality, we wrote about the outcome of these experiences on our personal lives and our interactions with clients. Froma personal perspective, we discussed the need to guard against burnout. Our experiences produced concrete ways to focus on our own needs in the midst of complex and demanding lives. Finally, we discussed how our methods could be applied to clinical work and the need for future research on self-care for clinicians.