There is a beautiful relationship when a practitioner is of service to another. However, there exists an equal tension between serving and knowing when to stop.
A mask can form a layer or persona that we wear when we are working. It can be protective, providing distance and professional boundaries. It does not mean that we are masquerading or pretending to be someone that we're not. Indeed, when we wear it we can choose what we will reveal of ourselves and what we hold back.
It is such a challenge in a world which says that it wants to know more about us. Our profiles, our social media status and activities, but where does the information needed start and our privacy end?
This is one of the reasons why it can be challenging for therapists and practitioners to reach out for support. We are the supporters, the helpers, the guides, but is that invalidated if we remove our mask and reach out for help?
Photo by Hanna Morris on Unsplash
Continued Professional Development equips us to be better practitioners, but it is not only about developing academic skills. Part of improving is to know ourselves and to be able to delve into the messy and complication of our inner worlds. In so doing we learn when we are okay and when we're really not okay.
In The Therapeutic Relationship in Complementary Health Care, Mitchell and Cormack (1998) discuss stress and burnout of the practitioner and say '….part of the motivation for becoming a practitioner lies outside our conscious awareness and some unconscious needs may drive us to work beyond the bounds of reasonableness and in the end to the detriment, rather than to the benefit of patients as well as ourselves.'
It is interesting to question who we have to be, or are expected to be, both by our client's but also ourselves. We are often told by society to be 'the expert'. This can be an challenging weight to carry, especially if we continually adopt the mantle. We can never know it all, or always have it all together.
The most simple thing we can do is to be honest with ourselves, but also to be in a community or relationship with candid professional support. There are times when we will have to be wholly 'the practitioner', but we also need to recognise when to let go. We are not a practitioner at home or when we're out for a coffee and neither should we want to be. The burden is too heavy.
Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash
The mask should be light allowing us to see out, but it should also be removable so that we can separate who we are from what we do. We should not be afraid to reach out for support because when we do, we allow the unconscious to become conscious. In so doing we can become more authentic practitioners who are so comfortable in their own skin that they may no longer need a mask.
About the Author: Felicia Jones
