[This will become a regular section of my website, Gentler Insanities Anonymous. FMHP: For Mental Health Professionals. It will contain columns and recent research. Eventually, it will also contain original articles. Clink the link below to subscribe.]
I’ve recently come across a few posts and concerns posted by therapists and other mental health practitioners that resonated with me. I wanted to address them from my point of view. I am not a therapist, psychologist or any kind of –ist. I’m just a guy who has been there, learning and educating for 54 years.
I’ll first address the sadness that therapists are feeling when they have to stop taking insurance. They have posted that they cry. I am writing this from the perspective of a person who desperately needs therapy but can’t afford it.
Bluntly, you have to do what you have to do. You cannot pour from an empty cup. The system has been crap for decades, and, in my informed opinion, getting worse.
I am the son of a mother diagnosed with bipolar disorder with schizophrenic tendencies, so I have been around the system for a long time, my entire life. With so many new options, modalities and studies, it seems to me it is still regressing.
I saw it regress. As a young child, an involuntary commitment meant 30 days. That dropped to 15, then 10, and finally three, where my mom would come home so drugged that she could not function.
You are paying the price of this, and it is a heavy burden on you. It is not your fault. You have to maintain a healthy mental and physical life so you can do what you do.
A long time ago, I was called a fascist by a philosophy professor. It was about a completely different topic, but the story he told me to illustrate his point has always stuck with me.
A very poor man is with his two children and they are all hungry. He can only make one sandwich a day, which he cuts into quarters. He is working each day to bring in enough for that one sandwich, hoping to make more. What does he do with the sandwich?
The normal reaction, my reaction, was to give the entire sandwich to the starving kids.
That’s not the right answer.
The correct answer is to give each child a quarter and take the half for himself. In that way, he can continue to work and keep his children alive, and potentially earn more and do better. There is hope in that path.
The other way, my reaction, led to a hopeless end. Without the nutrients for work, he can’t work anymore and loses everything.
You cannot pour from an empty cup.
You, as mental health care professionals, are also under assault. You are being traumatized in ways that never happened before, before the system broke even more. You are forced into a new role, one in which you were never trained.
You have been placed on the front lines in a battle against a world that is seeing a rapid increase in mental health issues. Instead of being the therapist you were meant to be, far behind the lines, you are now thrust into the role of a field medic.
What can you do?
First, keep the cup filled. I highly recommend meditation and yoga, but you do what you need to do.
Think long and deep about what you probably tell your clients: healthy boundaries.
Finally, you can provide resources for people who can’t afford care. There are many of us out there but there are many resources out there as well that many people don’t know about. Create a page on your website listing them.
You can even throw me out there. Gentler Insanities Anonymous is an idea, based upon the proven scalable model of the 12 Step Programs. You can find more information here: https://friendsofgina.com/
The most important thing is keeping that cup full because you cannot pour from an empty cup. Give yourself a break, a big hug, and some compassion.
Aloha.
Gentler Insanities Anonymous 
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