Mental Health of Counsellors: Risk and Protective Factors

Dear Counsellors, you are welcome to the Year 2021 and of utmost concern is the
need to do a background check of your state of mental, social and psychological well-
being.

Have you ever wondered why you easily feel emotional exhausted, depersonalized or
burn out despite your awareness of self? The answer is simple! Everyone needs to
balance his/her energy and that of his/her internal and external environments to ensure
optimal functioning.

A counselling psychologist at any point in time must attain a positive state of mental
and psychological health in order to effectively engage his or her clients in counselling
and therapeutic relationships. To achieve this, a counsellor in practice must understand
the risk and protective factors resident in their biopsychosocial spaces. Beyond that, he
or she must also adopt certain attitudes, behaviours and practices to maintain a healthy
state.

There are several risks inherent in every workplace but we will focus on a counsellor in
practice in this maiden edition. The primary risk a counsellor is confronted with is
incongruence that occurs when the level of counselling competence and capacity does
not measure up to the needs of the client or counselling situation. This is critical to a
counsellor’s state of mental health because he or she is likely to be under pressure to
meet certain expectations and may eventually lead to frustration and maladjustment if
help is not found. The second risk is the lack of professional support which may affect
the emotions, motivation and performance of counsellor. The social and professional
capital of a counsellor determines his quality and strength which are essential for career
success.

Another risk to consider is counsellor’s quality of life which is measured by the level of
biological and psychosocial wellbeing. This third point begs for the need to have a
personal therapist as a counsellor whom to visit on a periodic basis to manage work-
family conflicts and help in resolving or managing life issues within the context of family
and workplace. There is the tendency for a counsellor to fall into the slippery slope of
been overconfident about managing life issues due to his or her professional
background. Sadly, a lot of counsellors appear to actually need counselling and many of
them are used to displaying protective feeling to avoid stark reality of their character
flaws.

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In addition, poor goal setting and career resilience also serves as major risk factors
which leads to low motivation, misplaced priorities and career frustration on the long.
Every counsellor must have clearly defined goals for his or her professional practice.
Remember, if you cannot define, assess or measure an activity, you cannot objectively
know if there is progress or not. It is imperative for counsellors to set SMART goals in
order to ensure that their personal and professional goals are aligned for effective and
productive life.

It is germane to consider the specialty and nature of the counsellor and the workplace
setting respectively. A counsellor that works on trauma, special needs or addiction
cases will definitely be faced with more stressors than counsellors that are in other
fields such as career or advocacy counselling due to the routine and intensity of the
regimen used with their clients. In a similar vein, work setting where the workload is
high will lead to physical and mental distress and eventually burnout of counsellors in
practice.

Remember, you are also human and must take a break and re-assess, refuel, and
rejuvenate to be at optimal functioning on a consistent basis. Some other tips you may
find relevant include:

• Learn to say No.

• Learn to make referrals.
• Attain career clarity
• Invest in your personal development
• Learn to improve on your social relationships
• Pay attention to your physical health
• Have a regular visit to a therapist
• Live and work in environment with positive energies

If you find this interesting and you need more information on how to boost your mental
health as a counsellor in private or public practice, chat or follow us on social media.

Mohammed Ahmed Ademola (mentorMoh)

Team Lead, Content Team
ADI Therapy Hub