Growing up, and especially once I was an undergraduate student, I would hear people around me promoting self-care as a way to prevent from becoming exhausted. Some common phrases were: “Don’t stay up too late doing homework,” “Treat yourself every once in a while,” or “Find something to take your mind off of work.” It wasn’t until I was a graduate student in clinical psychology that I learned from my professors how self-care is actually an ethical requirement for being an effective therapist. This really changed how I viewed and esteemed self-care. Before I learned about self-care in an ethical context, I saw it as something that only affected my own quality of life. Now, I see self-care as a behavior that impacts the well-being of those around me, especially in my work as a therapist. If I can’t meet my own needs, how can I possibly help someone else meet theirs?
