The Process of Learning about Myself

As I have been continuing the process of learning and accepting my role in my internship, there are a lot of things that I learned about myself throughout the last couple of weeks. When working at an internship with young clients, ranging from 5 to 13 years old, there is a specific approach you need to take to succeed as a behavioral therapist and helper.  

Before this internship, I would say that patience was a quality that I lacked and did not feel the need to work on. However, throughout this internship I have noticed that one of my best qualities has become patience, which is extremely odd to me, making me realize that I am a very patient person. Throughout sessions, there are moments every day when clients will be non-compliant and unwilling to complete specific tasks. Instead of getting frustrated that I am not being a good therapist, worrying that I will not complete all the tasks in time, or getting frustrated with myself for things not going how I envisioned they would, I find myself taking a step back and allowing myself to take things one step at a time. This is a quality that has naturally strengthened immediately after starting my internship and has transferred over to my day-to-day life.  

Another thing that I learned about myself is that I am very flexible and easily adapt to a diverse environment and population. One positive comment that I have heard from my supervisor is that she feels comfortable with pairing me with any kind of client, no matter the age or condition, because I tend to be very versatile. I have always known that I can easily relate to others, but I never knew that I would be able to adapt to diverse environments and people so easily when it comes to being a helper in their lives. This has been a blessing because I have formed strong relationships with my clients who are all unique in their own ways. I often remind myself that, like finding a counselor or therapist, children also have preferences on the therapist they are working with. So, it is extremely important and rewarding to me that I have formed such strong connections and built so much trust with all my clients.  

Although there are a lot of positive realizations throughout this internship, there are also more negative ones. Burnout is something I have not really experienced before in my life, at least not to the extent that I have felt throughout this path. Working is something remarkably familiar to me, since I have been juggling multiple jobs at once ever since I was 15 years old and continue to do it to this day. There have been days throughout my working life where I have felt overwhelmed, stressed out, and overworked but throughout my internship as a behavioral therapist, I have experienced emotional burnout. Burnout is a feeling of extreme exhaustion and overwhelming feelings that can leave a negative effect on your role within your career. I have noticed myself coming home after having sessions all day, where I feel emotionally drained and unwilling to go back for more sessions for the rest of the week. There have been situations where I have gotten physically hurt throughout sessions with clients and have pushed myself to continue session and keep the client safe as that is my priority. However, I found myself coming home feeling extremely upset and overwhelmed with the situations that have occurred at work. These moments lead to burnout which can really interfere with the services that I am providing my clients. Another consequence of burnout is that it alters our interactions with our clients and changes the way we view ourselves as therapists as the clients that are working with, overall affecting the quality of care that we are providing our clients (Mcarthy & Frieze, 1999). That is why it is important to talk to our supervisors and other therapists when we are feeling burnt out so that we do not hurt ourselves and our clients.  

Reference Page

McCarthy, W. C., & Frieze, I. H. (1999). Negative Aspects of Therapy: Client Perceptions of

Therapists’ Social Influence, Burnout, and Quality of Care. Journal of Social

Issues, 55(1), 33–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-4537.00103