Individual Counseling Crucial For Healthcare Professionals

Individual counseling is a crucial care measure for healthcare professionals coping with trauma resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Doctors, nurses, and mental health professionals (therapists) on the front lines are exhausted, burned out, and demoralized. Many have moved into other positions if not left the field entirely, and with more contagious variants raging, many more are out sick again. This leaves the few that are left in an even more stressful position.

While front-line workers have been celebrated by some Americans, they have also experienced being treated cruelly and mercilessly by others. Those against vaccinations and against wearing masks can be hostile toward those in healthcare who have been fighting the pandemic. Healthcare professionals have been falsely accused of everything from exaggerating case numbers to lying about the very existence of the virus, all while they run themselves ragged trying to save lives every day.

A Crisis Of Moral Injury

Researchers working on burnout among healthcare workers have adopted the term “moral injury.” This term was first used to describe the psychological damage war veterans suffered as a result of following orders and complying with a job that required them to violate their own ethics.

In regard to healthcare workers, moral injury is described as “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.” This can be extremely damaging to one’s identity, sense of morality, and relationships.

So many healthcare professionals In the U.S. are caught in the middle of trying to serve the needs of patients and clients within a system that cares more about profit than saving lives. It is clear that a for-profit healthcare system leaves behind people who need care the most, but there is currently no available alternative that solves the problem. This inability to meet patients’ needs consistently creates moral injury.

Individual Counseling To Heal The Healer

With so many healthcare workers out due to COVID and others resigning, essentially everyone left is suffering from burnout and compassion fatigue. It is traumatizing to listen to phone messages and read emails from desperate patients with emergent needs when you are unable to help them.

While many are able to look away and pretend the pandemic is over, doctors, nurses, therapists and healthcare professionals on the frontlines are still in the trenches and will continue to feel the effects for years to come. Individual counseling at Take Charge, Inc. in Overland Park, KS can help the healer heal. Utilizing a trauma-informed approach, we recognize “symptoms” and “problem behaviors” as adaptations to trauma and build upon your strengths.

For more information about individual counseling in Johnson County, KS, call Take Charge, Inc. at (913) 239-8255. To schedule an appointment, click here.