Therapy for Therapists: Design Opportunities to Support the Psychological Well-being of Mental Health Workers

DOI

On-demand mental health services—including counseling, crisis hotlines, and peer support programs—are vital to the healthcare system, providing acute and ongoing support through telephone, online, and text-based communication. Although such services have proven effective at reducing hopelessness, psychological pain, and suicidality, they put mental health professionals at high risk of burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue. Our interviews with mental health workers across professions from four mental health organizations revealed that while mental health workers have a strong motivation to help individuals struggling to meet their mental health needs, they face various challenges, including heavy caseloads, having to navigate dealing with crisis clients and managing the impact of abuse and harassment. Although organizations spend a significant time training workers prior to their involvement with clients, the training lacks components of self-compassion and self-care. To overcome their challenges, participants identify the need to be self-reliant and engage in care practices ranging from socializing with coworkers to yoga and meditation. Although technology is an integral part of their work routine, participants, irrespective of their age, had misapprehensions regarding technology use in the mental health care space and for managing one’s own psychological well-being. We recommend design guidelines for HCI researchers, including developing contextualized just-in-time adaptive interventions to promote self-compassion and educating workers regarding the use of various technologies to manage their psychological well-being.