The Particular Loneliness of Private Practice
She said goodbye to the client and closed her laptop. She felt that heavy feeling in her belly again.
She was worried about the client. Four years in and she still worried sometimes. She knew she’d followed due diligence, but she wished there had been more she could have done for the client today.
The heaviness in her belly was something she’d been feeling quite often these days. It was like something was missing. Something she needed. And not supervision or a long bath. Something else.
Was she carrying too much alone? Something that supervision couldn’t quite fix?
It was Friday afternoon. She wondered how she could contain her feelings and be all smiles for her family over the weekend.
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Maybe this resonates with you, or a version of it at least. I don’t feel the loneliness of private practice is like loneliness in the general sense. It's the specific isolation of a profession built around deep human connection where confidentiality means it’s difficult to talk about one of the most significant parts of your day. It’s also the loneliness of bearing an emotional load that people who work in most other roles don’t understand.
And there are things that can increase the chance of loneliness in the reality we are living in. So many more of us are working online since COVID and there are some peer networks that have dispersed since the lockdowns. Building a practice has become increasingly solitary and increasingly pressurised at the same time. It seems like we have to work so hard and long for our pennies that it gives us even less time and energy to connect with each other.
There are many personal circumstances that can increase the chance of loneliness. If you are geographically isolated and doing this role it can limit the amount and type of interaction available to you. Geographical isolation means that there is one more obstacle to accessing the connection you might need after a difficult week, particularly if it’s face-to-face connection you crave.
Those who have caring responsibilities can find it difficult to get time for their own needs. If you have young children or are caring for ageing parents (or both) for instance, time can be particularly scarce. Sadly, it’s often our own needs such as connecting with peers that can get sidelined when you look after others.
Whether or not you built close relationships in your training group, these can often drift when counsellors qualify and go separate ways, either geographically or professionally. Even though you may have promised to stay in contact with each other, this doesn’t always come to fruition when the shared experience of weekly training is taken out of the equation.
It’s also important to say that our emotional or mental state can impact our readiness or headspace to connect with peers. Experiencing a bereavement, burnout or a professionally tough time can throw our lives into disarray and cause connection to feel difficult or to cause us to feel like no one ‘gets it’. In some cases, we may feel shame about our situation or how we are feeling because we think that, as a counsellor, we should be able to carry on as if nothing has happened. Or we might fear the reaction or judgement of other counsellors if we say that we aren’t coping as well as we would like.
Professional pride can cause us to hesitate before we reach out to other counsellors for support.
Supervision is something that most of us prioritise and, of course, it is important to do so. Having a supervisor who we get on with, who we trust and who supports us is an integral part of our professional toolkit. Some of you might have a peer supervision group as well, an excellent way of making sure that you connect with other counsellors. My experience has been that it’s important to decide what you want from peer supervision sessions. Some might want to be able to gain insight from counsellors with similar expertise but in other instances, the emotional connection and solidarity might feel more important. I was in a peer supervision group where I realised I wasn’t getting the connection or solidarity I was looking for. Most of us are pushed for time so it is important to find the spaces and community that are right for you.
I genuinely believe that it takes more than supervision to create the community we need as a counsellor. Some of you will work for an organisation such as a school, university or charity which does naturally provide a community. Even then, I think that it’s important to find others who we trust and can talk to. It can be freeing to talk to professionals who aren’t based at the same organisation and having contacts who may inspire or help us if you ever want to take on a new role can be very helpful.
Something that can often make building connections outside supervision a little sticky is apprehension about around sharing experiences while maintaining confidentiality. I strongly believe that it is possible to share experiences without divulging confidential information. I believe that I do this when I write these articles for T-pot and that it is possible to follow similar principles. If we talk about our own experience, we aren’t sharing anything that’s out of bounds. I also believe that even just being with other counsellors can provide a space where others just ‘get it’ and it’s possible to relax.
I could have written a multitude of versions of the opening scene I shared. A burnt-out charity worker who can’t seem to relate to their workmates. A newly qualified counsellor who no longer has the support of their training peers. A stressed-out single mum or dad who finds it difficult to find the time for connection. A counsellor who has moved for a new job but feels culturally alone in a new city. No two scenarios are the same.
Life is messy and we are beyond striving for perfect. But what we can do is try. And we’re going to try and help by starting to arrange some in-person meetups for counsellors in different cities in the UK starting with Oxford in June. That aside, I know that I can benefit from trying to see the opportunities rather than focussing on the obstacles. Self-kindness is also important because if we aren’t kind to ourselves, we are more likely to feel too fearful to reach out or too shameful to say how we really feel.
I know that one community of counsellors can’t fix loneliness. Loneliness is almost inevitable. We all have moments where we don’t know what is going on and can’t connect. We all have moments where grief, burn-out or fear can make connection feel very difficult. What we can do is name the loneliness and feel solidarity in it. We can also build connections that might not be perfect or provide the regularity of contact that we would like but are a start. If you are feeling lonely right now, how could you kindly start today?
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Friday.
Fiona thought about how easy it had become to rely on her own four walls and on herself.
It had been a simple coffee but there had been nods of recognition. A laugh or two. A shared experience of a pet insisting on taking the limelight in an online session.
Maybe there was another way.