Any psychiatrists or therapists on PH

[vulture1]

How do YOU cope. What i mean is your customers are all people telling you their problems, their emotions their issues. It must be totally emotionall draining for you to listen to them day after day week after week.

I ask because I work in retail managing a team of 40 ish. The recent push of mental health to the forefront of every discussion means as a retail manager I spend 90% of my 1 to 1s dealing with staff and their issues. None of which are ever directly work related.

I barely spend any of my time coaching my team on faster or more productive ways to merchandise. It is always "i need to speak to you" and a big counseling session how how they are feeling etc.

We are given courses to do and basic training as well as support numbers for people with issues to call: grocery line, occupational health, mind etc

[Beetnik]

You have professional support from a supervisor

[digger_R]

A lot of meditation, the therapy also focuses on personal responsibility and meditation to process the deeper aspects of what's going on internally.
If all that sounds like French - then cathartic/active meditation practices are a great place to start - they essentially will help to process through the body-mind and then go into silence/stillness.

[Animal]

vulture1 said:

How do YOU cope. What i mean is your customers are all people telling you their problems, their emotions their issues. It must be totally emotionall draining for you to listen to them day after day week after week.

I ask because I work in retail managing a team of 40 ish. The recent push of mental health to the forefront of every discussion means as a retail manager I spend 90% of my 1 to 1s dealing with staff and their issues. None of which are ever directly work related.

I barely spend any of my time coaching my team on faster or more productive ways to merchandise. It is always "i need to speak to you" and a big counseling session how how they are feeling etc.

We are given courses to do and basic training as well as support numbers for people with issues to call: grocery line, occupational health, mind etc

My wife's a trained psychotherapist, and there are several parts to the answer:
1) The training they undertake is, from the sounds of it, pretty intense in parts, and is designed not to desensitise you to hearing people's awful stories, but to be able to hear them with empathy without taking them on as your own. Compartmentalisation is a large part. My wife also referred to part of the course as 'emotional bootcamp', whereby attendees had to deal with their own 'stuff' in the group setting - you can't be squeamish talking about hard topics! It also means that you are less likely to be triggered by something you hear during a session.

2) Every therapist has (or certainly should have) clinical supervision. This is where they discuss their cases with a qualified supervisor, enabling them to take a step back and assess the client and progress. These are always anonymous - initials only.

3) Most - if not all - therapists see a therapist of their own. The cynic in me says that this is just a way of giving every one of them a job, but if a therapist can't see the point of therapy then who will?!

4) A lot of therapists do not work full-time: my wife works in her main role 4 days per week and then has one day's private practice, but she does not work a typical 40-hour week (prep work and admin not withstanding).

HTH.