PS380 Unit 9 Professional Development Reflection Example

Four Months on the Waiting List: A PS380 Unit 9 Professional Development Reflection

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS380: Clinical Psychology

Unit 9 Professional Development Reflection

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the clinic and its staff are composite; the burnout research cited is real.

Where I Am Now

For two years I have been the clinic's mental health practitioner, the most junior clinical role on its staff. Under supervision, I complete intake paperwork, run screening measures, help clients with skills practice between therapy sessions and connect them with services. I am finishing my bachelor's degree in psychology, and I need to decide what comes next.

This term made the decision harder in a useful way. In February, the clinic's licensed independent clinical social worker, whom I will call Rachel, took a leave of absence. She had carried a caseload of more than ninety clients, the largest in the clinic, and the waiting list had grown to four months. Before she left, she told me she had stopped feeling anything when clients described terrible things, and that this frightened her more than the workload.

Two Paths

The first path is a doctorate in clinical or counseling psychology, which is what Dr. Lund, our psychologist, completed. A PsyD or PhD typically takes five to seven years, including a year-long internship, followed in Minnesota by supervised postdoctoral hours and the national licensing examination. The degree would allow me to do psychological testing, which no one else within forty miles can do, and to supervise others.

The second path is a counseling master's degree, which takes two to three years, followed by about two years of supervised practice before I could apply for licensure as a professional clinical counselor. That path would let me provide therapy much sooner and would cost far less.

When I began this course, I assumed the doctorate was the better choice because it leads further. Watching Rachel changed the question. The more important issue is not which degree goes further, but which path I can sustain in a setting like ours.

I started this course asking which degree would take me furthest, and I am ending it asking which path I can sustain without becoming what Rachel described.

What Burnout Is

Maslach and Jackson (1981) developed the Maslach Burnout Inventory to measure burnout in human service workers along three dimensions. Emotional exhaustion is the sense of being drained. Depersonalization is a cold, distant stance toward the people one is supposed to help. Reduced personal accomplishment is the loss of any sense that the work makes a difference. Rachel's words fit all three. She was exhausted, she had stopped feeling anything when clients described trauma, and she said she no longer believed she was helping anyone.

Morse et al. (2012) reviewed research on burnout among mental health workers. They found that a substantial share of workers, as many as two-thirds in some studies, reported high levels of burnout. The risk factors they identified included high caseloads, limited control over one's work, role conflict and working with clients with severe problems. Burnout was associated with worse care, more turnover and poorer health for workers. They also found that few interventions had been rigorously tested, and that those which existed focused mostly on individual skills rather than changing workplace conditions.

The review was sobering. It suggested that Rachel's burnout said more about her caseload and her clinic than about her character. It also suggested that self-care alone, the advice I most often hear, may not be enough if the caseload stays the same.

My Plan

I have decided on the counseling master's, with a plan to reconsider a doctorate after several years of practice. Three reasons drive the decision. First, our region needs therapists now, and I can be one within five years rather than nine. Second, I want to learn whether I can sustain therapy work before committing to a longer path. Third, a doctorate would be more valuable to me later, when I know which kind of clinical work I want to specialize in.

The burnout research also shaped what I will look for in training and work. I will choose a program that requires and supports personal reflection and supervision, not only technique. When I am licensed, I will ask any employer about caseload limits and supervision before accepting a position, because Morse et al. (2012) found that workplace conditions matter more than individual habits. I will keep some protected time each week for consultation, which Dr. Lund does even with a waiting list. I will also learn to recognize depersonalization in myself early, since it was the dimension Rachel noticed last and feared most.

The ethics code gives this plan a professional basis as well as a personal one. It directs psychologists to watch for personal problems that could interfere with their work and to take steps such as seeking consultation or limiting their duties when that happens (American Psychological Association, 2017). Read that way, noticing my own exhaustion early is part of my obligation to clients, not a luxury.

What I Still Have to Learn

Two things remain uncertain. The first is how to balance the needs of a region with too few clinicians against the limits that protect me from burnout. Rachel took a large caseload because she could not stand turning people away. I do not yet know what I will do when I face the same choice. The second is whether I will want to do testing someday, which might make the doctorate the right path after all.

Conclusion

This course and this term changed how I think about a career in clinical work. The question is no longer only how far a degree can take me, but how to build a career that lasts in a setting that needs clinicians badly. Maslach's dimensions gave me words for what happened to Rachel, and the burnout review showed me that the answer has to include the conditions of the work, not just my own resilience.

References

American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (2002, amended effective June 1, 2010, and January 1, 2017). https://www.apa.org/ethics/code

Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (1981). The measurement of experienced burnout. Journal of Occupational Behaviour, 2(2), 99-113. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030020205

Morse, G., Salyers, M. P., Rollins, A. L., Monroe-DeVita, M., & Pfahler, C. (2012). Burnout in mental health services: A review of the problem and its remediation. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 39(5), 341-352. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-011-0352-1