Sustainability Is a Fundamental Responsibility: Therapist Burnout, Moral Injury, and the Systems We Practice Within

And also that sustainability is a fundamental

responsibility.

The principle that we're actually doing right now that's a bit more of the focus is about burnout.

I mean, I think you've gone on Reddit a few times and it seems like that's where we get cited the most.

Folks are listening to our stuff and saying, man, I'm burned out.

And so putting these two principles together, that therapists are human first and sustainability is a fundamental responsibility, I think it's important.

And so what do we mean by that? The idea that it is our job to create a sustainable career is interesting because it's in some ethics codes.

We've talked about that.

It's also in this notion that we have a responsibility to ourselves, to our clients, to the profession to do it right.

And that's such an individual focus.

Anybody that's listened to us for any period of time understands that that's not how we operate.

We recognize that therapists are human first, that's our principle there, and that we're impacted by the systems around us.

And so when we've talked about it in the past, we've talked about it as this both and.

We need to navigate the system as it is, as effectively as we can.

And we need to work to shift the system to be more sustainable.

And my hope in this episode is that we're able to get to some of what we've talked about and explain this a bit more with some of the catalog and what we've talked about in other places.

But I also want to talk about the current state of where we all are.

I put a thing out in our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist group, and we got some interesting responses around how people are experiencing the profession and the sustainability of the profession now.

And so we'll go into some of that later.

But my take is, To start out is things are changing very quickly with AI.

Insurance companies are...

Vertically integrating.

Vertically integrating, that's a good way to put it.

And the work that we did even a couple years ago is very different than the work is now.

And we are in a constant state of trauma and crisis in the world.

And also that sustainability is a fundamental

responsibility.

The principle that we're actually doing right now that's a bit more of the focus is about burnout.

I mean, I think you've gone on Reddit a few times and it seems like that's where we get cited the most.

Folks are listening to our stuff and saying, man, I'm burned out.

And so putting these two principles together, that therapists are human first and sustainability is a fundamental responsibility, I think it's important.

And so what do we mean by that? The idea that it is our job to create a sustainable career is interesting because it's in some ethics codes.

We've talked about that.

It's also in this notion that we have a responsibility to ourselves, to our clients, to the profession to do it right.

And that's such an individual focus.

Anybody that's listened to us for any period of time understands that that's not how we operate.

We recognize that therapists are human first, that's our principle there, and that we're impacted by the systems around us.

And so when we've talked about it in the past, we've talked about it as this both and.

We need to navigate the system as it is, as effectively as we can.

And we need to work to shift the system to be more sustainable.

And my hope in this episode is that we're able to get to some of what we've talked about and explain this a bit more with some of the catalog and what we've talked about in other places.

But I also want to talk about the current state of where we all are.

I put a thing out in our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist group, and we got some interesting responses around how people are experiencing the profession and the sustainability of the profession now.

And so we'll go into some of that later.

But my take is, To start out is things are changing very quickly with AI.

Insurance companies are...

Vertically integrating.

Vertically integrating, that's a good way to put it.

And the work that we did even a couple years ago is very different than the work is now.

And we are in a constant state of trauma and crisis in the world.