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Key points
- Psychologists can experience anxiety and struggle with negative self-talk, especially early in their careers.
- It can be tricky to hold space for clients' emotions while also building up a therapy practice.
- Maintaining self-compassion, reflecting on one's successes, and seeking help when needed can be beneficial.
While you are training to help others navigate their mental health struggles, how do you manage your own anxiety as a budding therapist? Being an early-career psychologist puts you at higher risk for burnout. Learning to hold space for other people's emotions while building your competency to practice can be overwhelming.
Psychologists are not immune to experiencing anxiety and negative self-talk, particularly concerning feelings of incompetence in their practice. As an early-career psychologist, it is normal to have performance anxiety and ask yourself questions like:
- "Am I doing it right?"
- "Am I doing it well?"
- "Am I doing enough to help this client?"
Some anxiety can be helpful and functional when it alerts us to threats or problems in our environment that need to be addressed. However, when it is excessive and or chronic, it can be debilitating and stop us from being able to do our job effectively. In this blog post, we will explore strategies early career psychologists can use to manage their anxiety and negative self-talk, particularly about being incompetent to practice.
1. Evaluate Negative Thoughts.
One of the most effective ways to manage negative self-talk is to identify the distressing thought, evaluate it, and modify it to something more balanced and adaptive. Sound familiar?
When you find yourself having unhelpful thoughts, ask yourself how valid they are. Are they based on evidence, or are they just assumptions? Can you reframe them into something more realistic? Quite often, early-career psychologists put an undue amount of pressure on themselves. It can be helpful to assess whether your expectations of yourself and what you can achieve are realistic given your experience, competency, the presenting issue, the length of time you have been seeing this client, etc. Make sure you set realistic expectations of yourself, and remember that progress in therapy takes time.
2. Problem-solve.
Is there something actionable I can do with this anxiety? Take a moment to reflect on your professional goals and what areas of competency you are working towards. Focus on building skills in one therapy modality first; you do not need to be good at every therapy and with every presentation at the very early stages of your career. You hopefully have many years ahead to learn other modes of treatment and develop niches.
Some of your performance anxiety will reduce as you build your skills and competency as a therapist, so establish a learning plan and invest in some high-quality training. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a great place to start to build your competency to practice. It is the first-line treatment for most presentations and offers the structure most early-career psychologists need when starting out.
3. Practice Self-compassion.
Self-compassion is being kind and understanding toward yourself. When you are struggling with feelings of incompetence, remind yourself that people learn through doing and sometimes by making mistakes. We all have to start somewhere. How can you show up for yourself more compassionately?
4. Reflect on Your Success.
Reflect on past achievements and accomplishments in your practice. Remembering times when you helped a client or received positive feedback can help boost your confidence and counteract negative self-talk. As psychologists, we don't receive the instant gratification or regular reinforcement that other professions may benefit from that inform them they are doing well.
Therapy is a process that takes time; it can be months before we see progress with our clients. Therefore, it becomes essential to look for these reinforcements ourselves. Ask yourself: What are some things you are doing exceptionally well right now? What are some of the "small wins" you've had this week?
5. Seek Support.
Reach out to colleagues and supervisors for support and guidance. This can help you gain perspective and can also help you determine whether there is something actionable you can do with your anxiety (such as training to increase your competency) or whether you need to build your skills in self-care techniques.
6. Seek Professional Help.
If your anxiety or negative self-talk becomes overwhelming, another therapist can work with you to develop coping strategies and address underlying issues contributing to your feelings of incompetence. Getting therapy as a therapist is humbling and insightful and can also give us some insight into how our clients feel by "sitting in the other chair."
Remember, it is essential to be kind and understanding toward yourself and to seek support when needed. Being a good psychologist is also partially about managing your mental health and developing the skills required to handle the role. You cannot pour from an empty cup.
This article was also published at Amanda Moses Psychology.
