What is the Hardest Part of Being a Mental Health Counselor?

Quick Highlights:

• Counseling can be a rewarding, yet challenging career.
• The emotional weight from dealing with distressed clients can lead to burnout and compassion fatigue among therapists.
• Maintaining clear boundaries with clients is key to prevent over-involvement and manage emotional drain effectively.
• Achieving a balanced lifestyle is challenging due to long hours and additional administrative duties.

While becoming a mental health counselor is a rewarding decision, there can be difficult aspects to this career. If you are trying to decide whether you want to work in mental health counseling, you need to research the hardest part of being a therapist before you commit to years of schooling. In addition, you should learn more information about how to become a mental health counselor and what the day-to-day life of a counselor is like. 

Once you discover the most difficult part of counseling, you don’t have to be deterred from pursuing your dream career. Instead, you can use practical techniques to manage and alleviate some of these challenges. 

Related:

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The Emotional Weight of Counseling

For most people, the hardest part of being a therapist is bearing the emotional weight of working with your clients. When a client comes to you, it is often in significant distress. Over time, this can lead to compassion fatigue and burnout. 

Most people are drawn to mental health counseling because of their empathy and compassion for other people. While you need these abilities to do your job well, too much emotional involvement can be draining. At any given time, between 21 and 67% of mental health counselors are experiencing high levels of burnout.

If you are experiencing some of the following signs, you may be suffering from burnout. 

• Feeling like you are overloaded
• Symptoms of anxiety, like excessive worry, problems relaxing, or irritability
• Feeling less warm and empathetic toward your clients
• Symptoms of depression, like social withdrawal, fatigue, apathy, and sadness
• Feeling cynical about your job

As burnout develops, the mental health counselor may start to feel detached from their client. They may struggle to build rapport because they feel disengaged. As a result, this may lead to a more generic, less personalized experience that isn’t as helpful for their clients. 

Maintaining Professional Boundaries

While empathy and compassion are good, becoming too entangled in your clients’ lives can lead to compassion fatigue. Because of this, it is important to keep a separation between your life and your client’s life. Unfortunately, many people find that maintaining professional boundaries is the most difficult part of counseling.  

To set effective boundaries with your clients, try using the following best practices. 

• Use Contracts: Create contracts and use informed consent so that clients are aware of the guidelines and boundaries in their sessions. 
• Watch for Self-Disclosure: While self-disclosures can be used appropriately to build trust, you need to be mindful about going overboard because this can shift the focus away from your client. 
• Track Your Time: As a mental health counselor, you should express your expectations about client punctuality. Set limits on how long your sessions last and stick to them.
• Be Mindful of Touch and Gift Giving: Gifts and physical touch are generally not necessary in client-patient relationships. If you do give gifts or use physical touch, be mindful of what you are doing and follow the ethical code for your profession. 

Ultimately, setting boundaries involves balancing empathy and not becoming too involved in your clients’ personal lives. If you can avoid these counseling challenges, you will have an easier experience working as a counselor.  

Work-Life Balance

For many people, the most difficult part of counseling is achieving a work-life balance. In one study, 42% of counselors were found to work 40 to 49 hours a week. When planning your sessions, it is important to keep in mind that you will spend a significant amount of time doing paperwork after each session. If you see 30 clients a week, you may devote 10 hours to doing paperwork afterward. 

To enjoy a healthy work-life balance, you should take time to do self-care activities. Go for a walk, take a bath, or enjoy a night out with your friends. If you find that you are overwhelmed by your workload, talk to your boss about getting fewer cases. You can also ask more experienced counselors for advice on managing your caseload as efficiently as possible. 

Dealing with Unpredictable Outcomes

Some people think the hardest part of being a therapist is dealing with unpredictable outcomes. You can treat two similar clients the same way and achieve completely different results. 

For many people, this can be incredibly stressful. As an empathetic person, you naturally want clients to reach their goals and become happy in life. After putting in a significant amount of time and effort to help your client, it can be incredibly difficult to cope with the sense of failure and frustration when your client’s progress stalls or regresses. 

To handle these counseling challenges, you first have to accept that there is only so much you can do in any situation. You are only in control of your own actions, so you can’t stop your client from making their own decisions. It is impossible to force someone to make progress if they can’t or won’t make an effort. 

Next, talk to someone. Many counselors get mental health counseling services. You can get help for your own mental health, or you can reach out to another counselor for professional advice. Either way, you don’t have to go through difficult emotions and experiences on your own. 

Staying Updated with Best Practices

After learning how to become a mental health counselor, you will likely spend years getting a master’s degree in the field and finishing a practicum. The idea of going to school for even longer can feel depressing, but you will most likely need more college credits if you want to keep your license. In most states, counselors are required to take continuing education classes to renew their licenses. 

However, these classes are also an opportunity for your professional growth. Each class is an opportunity to learn more about the latest research and best practices in mental health counseling. To avoid getting stressed out by the extra work, try spreading out your coursework over the entire year. You can also use academic journals to stay updated on developments and changes in the industry. 

Navigating the Stigma of Mental Health

For some people, the hardest part of being a therapist is convincing people to get the help they need. There is still a negative stigma around mental disease. The National Council for Behavioral Health estimated 70% of adults experience some kind of trauma during their lives, and 19.86% of adults currently have a mental illness. Despite these statistics, many people won’t get the help they need. 

Sometimes, the first time someone gets help is when they are ordered to by the courts, or a family member pushes them to get help. It can be difficult to deal with people in these cases because they may be unwilling to open up. As a counselor, the best thing you can do is focus on the client’s reality and meet them where they are. 

On a broader level, it’s important to be an advocate for mental health awareness. By raising awareness, you can reduce the stigma around mental illness and make it easier for people to get the help they need. 

Administrative and Bureaucratic Challenges

Most people focus on counseling challenges that involve the patient. Unfortunately, the most difficult part of counseling for many people is the paperwork. You will have to handle record keeping for each client and other administrative duties. In addition, you may be responsible for working with the patient’s insurance company if you are employed in a small practice. 

To prevent paperwork from overwhelming you, try handling administrative tasks whenever you have a spare moment. If a client cancels their appointment, immediately begin working on your administrative tasks so that you don’t have to stay late at the end of the day. 

Seeking Support and Supervision

As a mental health counselor, you spend most of your time telling other people how important it is to get help when they are under stress. From time to time, you need to remember to take your own advice. The American Counseling Association has many resources available for counselors who need extra support. You can also try pairing up with a mentor who can provide you with advice as you learn more about working as a counselor. 

Other than seeking help with work-related questions, you should also remember that it is all right to get help for yourself. There are many counselors available in your area who would love to give you extra support. 

Learn More About Becoming a Mental Health Counselor

Why become a mental health counselor? For many people, learning how to become a mental health counselor is important because it helps them make a difference in the lives of people in their community. 

The most difficult part of counseling is often that you can’t force people to change. No matter what you do, your efforts may not help a client make progress. Because a mental health counselor cares about their patients, they may become burned out or suffer from compassion fatigue when their patients don’t make progress.

For other people, the hardest part of being a therapist is prioritizing self-care and a work-life balance. This occupation can take up a significant portion of your time and mental focus, so it is important to prioritize your personal well-being. 

Once you are a part of the mental health counseling community, you may face many different challenges. By focusing on your continued learning and seeking support when you need it, you can overcome these challenges and complete your important work.