Good Therapy Starts With Taking Care of Therapists
You spend your day helping clients navigate crises, manage emotions, and make difficult decisions. Meanwhile, you're juggling documentation, insurance requirements, and a mental health system that doesn't always make it easy to help people. And somewhere in the middle of all that, you're supposed to take care of yourself, too. In this episode of The Art of Being a Therapist, hosts Ashley Charbonneau and Morgen Villegas talk with Kelsi, a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and Licensed Addiction Counselor (LAC), about addiction counseling, supervision, and what it takes to build a sustainable career in community mental health. One theme keeps coming up: You can love this work and still struggle with the systems surrounding it.
Good Supervision is More Than Reviewing Cases
Kelsi has spent over a decade working in community mental health, and she's experienced both good and bad supervision. She shares a particularly difficult experience of losing a client to suicide, after which a supervisor showed up at her door with a care package and simply held her while she cried. Her supervisor showed up as just another human being recognizing that she was hurting. Kelsi also describes how supervisors supported her through personal losses and health challenges. Those experiences taught her that good supervision isn't just about documentation, clinical skills, or ethical compliance. It's about recognizing the person behind the therapist. As Ashley points out, sometimes asking a supervisee, "How are you feeling?" can make a difference. If we want therapists to show up for their clients, someone needs to show up for them, too.
When the System Gets in the Way of Good Therapy
Kelsi loves working in community mental health. She believes in the work, values her colleagues, and sees the difference she's making. She also gets angry about insurance barriers, Medicaid challenges, and limited resources, which all make it difficult to provide clients with the care they need and deserve. Sometimes, there isn't an immediate solution, and Kelsi describes sitting with clients and acknowledging how frustrating their circumstances are. She can't always fix the system, but she can recognize its impact and remain present. We don't always have the power to change the systems our clients navigate. But we can advocate, collaborate, and acknowledge when something isn't working. We can recognize that a system is broken while still doing meaningful work within it.
Forget Self-Care. What Brings You Joy?
Toward the end of the conversation, Kelsi offers a different way to think about something therapists hear constantly: Self-care. Instead of asking what someone is doing for self-care, she asks, "What are you doing for joy?" For Kelsi, joy includes crafting, movement she actually enjoys, and activities that allow her to step away from the emotional demands of clinical work. She also emphasizes the importance of consultation, supportive relationships, and taking time off.
Sustaining a career in mental health isn't just about preventing burnout; it's about creating a life that feels meaningful outside the therapy room, too.
Two Things Can Be True At Once
Ashley, Morgen, and Kelsi return to the idea of holding two truths at once: The mental health system can save lives and fail people, therapists can love their careers and feel exhausted by them, and supervisors can hold clinicians accountable while also recognizing their humanity. Being a good therapist doesn't mean ignoring what's difficult or pretending everything is fine. Sometimes, it means acknowledging the limitations of the system, finding people who support you, and remembering why you chose this work in the first place.
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