Occupational Therapists, Allied Health Care Professionals and Burnout

As an Occupational therapist, I know burnout is an experience that is not atypical. How do I know this? I have been SO burnt out this past two months! Today I finally feel some semblance of normal energy (which is quite odd with my current pile of situations) so I thought I’d try to share from the heart.

Occupational therapists, like professionals in many other healthcare fields, are susceptible to burnout due to the demanding nature of our work. Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress. It can result from various factors including long work hours, heavy caseloads, emotional intensity of patient interactions, administrative burdens, and lack of resources or support. If you are a healthcare worker, I’m sure this sounds familiar!

Here are some factors specific to occupational therapists that can contribute to burnout:

1. Heavy Workloads: Occupational therapists often have heavy caseloads, which can lead to feeling overwhelmed and stressed. The pressure to meet the needs of numerous patients while maintaining quality care can be taxing.
2. Emotional Intensity: Working with patients who have physical, developmental, or emotional challenges can be emotionally demanding. Occupational therapists may experience vicarious trauma or compassion fatigue as they empathize with their patients’ struggles. Something I also recognize is the empathy burnout that many of us experience. Many of my clients are not alone in their struggles but their family also are going through major crisis trying to support them. Empathizing with a whole family in situations you can’t “fix” can be exhausting!
3. Administrative Tasks: Administrative tasks such as documentation, billing, and compliance with regulations can consume a significant amount of an occupational therapist’s time and energy, taking away from direct patient care and contributing to burnout. This is also an area that I know I am not strong in as I struggle with organization (that neurodiverse OT life!). Especially because I’m sure many of us didn’t go into the field with a passion for admin, this can be exhausting. Depending on your job sometimes this can be a huge part of it even though you don’t get paid for all the time it takes!
4. Lack of Resources and Support: Limited resources, both in terms of staffing and equipment, can make it difficult for occupational therapists to provide optimal care. Additionally, inadequate support from supervisors or colleagues can exacerbate feelings of burnout. I often find that the feeling of imposter syndrome can play a part in this one! You may have all the passion and resources in the world but feel like you aren’t providing the best for the client because you don’t have “enough to give” (in reality you’re probably making a big difference but comparison is the soul sucker of our career with such a wide range of skills we need to have!)
5. Work-Life Balance: Balancing the demands of work with personal life can be challenging for occupational therapists, especially if they are working long hours or dealing with high levels of stress at work. This also includes personal emotional challenges. No one lives in a silo where your only emotional stress is your clients! We all have family, friends, pets, health issues, bills etc to process and work through on top of our full time job, which sometimes is a full time job in itself!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Brittany Days, MS | Mental Health Counseling (@brighterdayswellness)

To prevent burnout, it’s essential for occupational therapists to prioritize self-care, establish boundaries, seek support from colleagues and supervisors, and engage in activities that promote well-being outside of work. Additionally, healthcare organizations can implement strategies such as workload management, providing resources for coping with stress, fostering a supportive work environment, and offering opportunities for professional development and growth.

We won’t focus on the support from your organization however here because you can’t guarantee they have the capacity or care to implement this (I’m sorry to say). I’m lucky that my manager understands mental health days and I am able to take them when needed. Unfortunately I also have EXTREME guilt around calling in sick so that’s something I need to work through!

So what can you do to help when you are burnt out ?

1. Reflection! Take time to reflect each week on your energy and therapist battery – if you are cancelling sessions often, feeling distracted, unable to focus in sessions and with admin, feel irritable with colleagues, clients or personal people in your life…. It’s time to take action before it gets too bad !
2. Prevention! it’s important to catch your burnout and prevent it if you can! Perhaps you revisit how you organize your work day with clients, admin and planning. Perhaps you need to rethink the population and the company you work with. I realized quickly that I need to be creative and accepting of my clients as they are, so the job I was working needed to match that! I’m still pretty tired but the burnout is way less frequent!
3. Relaxation/restoration! Take time to do things you enjoy that don’t take up more energy than you have – this is totally up to you, I like a lot of cozy hobbies like reading, gaming, junk journaling, nature walks etc. You may be more of a social connection person and need to do things outside with people to fill your cup! Whatever makes most sense to you works! This is also important to do regularly and not just when you feel burnout coming on or when you’re already burnt out! I always share the suggestion to my placement students that this should be scheduled into your regular week
4. Therapists need therapists! I’m thankful my colleagues are great to talk to, but we can only bounce off each other so much. Am I currently seeing a therapist? Of course not because I am bad at practicing what I preach, but I have researched and reached out to a neurodiverse affirming therapist who is now aware that I am an OT! Hopefully I can start this in May! Sometimes you need someone to just share everything with outside of your work colleagues or closest relationships

Check out the burnout OT 🙂 https://www.instagram.com/p/C6GqNtJROw6/?igsh=MWZrbmN2eDF2NjI3bg==

I LOVE to start try to start conversations in my posts, whether people respond or not. If you have any insight, input or ideas around burnout please share in the comments! Let’s work together to support each other 🙂