Disconcerting aspects in the everyday professional life of the mental health clinician: a brief overview

Abstract

Objective:

To collate and briefly outline some commonly encountered sources of unease in the professional life of mental health clinicians.

Method:

This paper is based on observations from a range of workplace settings, personal reflection and ideas drawn from the professional literature.

Conclusion:

There is considerable room for reducing work-related feelings of unease in mental health clinicians, such as through arriving at a better understanding of: the limitations of the academic literature with regard to clinical work and low predictability of treatment outcomes, the almost inevitable presence of patients’ ambivalence toward treatment, the rather personal nature of the work, the issues around ownership over patients’ difficulties and decisions pertaining to treatment, and clinicians cultivating a capacity for circumspection about ‘fixing’ patients and in so doing reduce their own levels of performance anxiety.