I have discussed the social worker and his or her challenges in volumes 3 and 6 of True Stories of Life in a Psychiatric Hospital. I described the enormous stress in the social work or counseling field. Social workers have the highest rank, in regards to the ratio of most stressful job to lowest paying career. It is not a surprise that more than 70% of social workers state their job is stressful. This is also confirmed by other studies and reports, not to mention my personal experience.
I have witnessed the most competent and gifted counselors and social workers, inpatient and outpatient, become burned out and ineffective. Some of them even leave this field of work all together, while finding work in less stressful careers for the sake of their own sanity and well-being. The exodus of excellent and capable counselors creates a void that seems to be filled with incompetent and unstable people in this profession. As the clinical director of social work at a psychiatric hospital, I encountered more than my fair share of these individuals.
In this volume I discuss the four biggest unpleasant surprises that recent graduates and newly employed social workers are confronted with in their career. These four surprises are also the biggest causes of burnout, bitterness, and early retirement (including getting fired and changing careers). However, this can be avoided. Most postgraduate college courses for this profession will not teach you these lessons; why, I don’t know. But you will learn what many social workers, and causalities of the field, had wished someone taught them before they were blindsided and left for dead—numb and useless to help anyone—including their self.
The lessons I teach in this volume are based on the knowledge I attained from the Life of Hard-Knocks University; they are from over 20 years of experience in the counseling field—in several settings; they are from working with over one hundred counselors or social workers; they are from supervising close to fifty counselors; they are from teaching college courses to hundreds of psychology students who desire to be social workers; and they are from watching countless counseling comrades fall and not get up.
I have witnessed the most competent and gifted counselors and social workers, inpatient and outpatient, become burned out and ineffective. Some of them even leave this field of work all together, while finding work in less stressful careers for the sake of their own sanity and well-being. The exodus of excellent and capable counselors creates a void that seems to be filled with incompetent and unstable people in this profession. As the clinical director of social work at a psychiatric hospital, I encountered more than my fair share of these individuals.
In this volume I discuss the four biggest unpleasant surprises that recent graduates and newly employed social workers are confronted with in their career. These four surprises are also the biggest causes of burnout, bitterness, and early retirement (including getting fired and changing careers). However, this can be avoided. Most postgraduate college courses for this profession will not teach you these lessons; why, I don’t know. But you will learn what many social workers, and causalities of the field, had wished someone taught them before they were blindsided and left for dead—numb and useless to help anyone—including their self.
The lessons I teach in this volume are based on the knowledge I attained from the Life of Hard-Knocks University; they are from over 20 years of experience in the counseling field—in several settings; they are from working with over one hundred counselors or social workers; they are from supervising close to fifty counselors; they are from teaching college courses to hundreds of psychology students who desire to be social workers; and they are from watching countless counseling comrades fall and not get up.
