Reflections on Wellness Series
For helping professionals, self-care is crucial to ethical practice. There are challenges and successes when trying to practice self-care. Overcoming barriers to success can be a personal process; however, engaging in cooperative problem solving with friends, family and colleagues can be beneficial. Consider the following questions as a guide to help you get started, or to help you fine-tune your wellness efforts.
- How do you define self-care?
- What are the cues that help you identify the need for additional self-care?
- How does lack of self-care impact clients/students or others we serve? How does our self-care benefit them?
- Who have you found to be facilitators for, or what have you found to facilitate, personal self-care?
- What challenges have you experienced to self-care practices? How have you addressed those challenges?
- What challenges do cultural differences bring to matters of self-care?
- How do you support your colleagues’ self-care efforts? How would you like them to support yours?
- How do you balance the need for self-care with conflicting ethical imperatives, such as the need to confront an unethical colleague?
References:
1. Faunce, P.S. (1990). The self-care and wellness of feminist therapists. In H. Lerman and M. Porter (Eds.). Feminist ethics in psychotherapy (pp. 123-130). New York: Spring Publishing Co.
2. Porter, N. (1995). Therapist self-care: A proactive ethical approach. In E.J. Rave and C.C. Larsen (Eds.), Ethical decision making in therapy: Feminist perspectives (pp. 247-266). New York: Guilford Press.
Adapted by Cathy Hauer from a workshop handout prepared by the presenters at the Association for Women in Psychology Conference, 2003.
Workshop presenters: Barbara Gormley, Michigan State University; Michele Boyer, Indiana State University; Gail Simon, Penn State University; Laurie Mintz, University of Missouri-Columbia
