Your worth is not your recovery rate

Before the routine use of outcome measurement through psychometrics, clients benefited from therapy and therapists no doubt, felt like they had helped the client to make the changes that they were able to in the timeframe available. So, when a therapist anxiously says to me that the clock is ticking on how much longer they have left with the client, I encourage them to think about the broader outcomes of engaging in therapy. Whether we like it or not our worth as therapists is to some degree judged externally by employers or referrers on our recovery rates, yet that does not have to influence our internal judgment of our worth. Developing an ability to see beyond outcome measurement and having self-compassion are, I believe, vital skills that all therapists need in their locker if they are to survive the real risk of burnout and compassion fatigue (see Kaeding et al., 2017).