Mental health therapist here and have been loving this sub. I resonate with the antiwork sentiment so much. I’ve had quite a few shitty jobs in my career and have been out of work (by choice) for the last few months due to burn out and being completely tired of the demeaning low paying cogwheel of corporate America and our capitalist system.
I just find it sad that in my profession we are required at minimum to have a masters degree and 2-3 years of post-masters clinical experience to obtain full licensure in our field and the average pay even after all of that is still around $50-55k. It’s a joke. And for that meager salary (if you can even get that) we are essentially production factory line workers and our only purpose is to bill insurance and make money for the company, so we’re forced to see patients back to back all day all week long, I’ve never had a job where I was allowed “admin time” or paid time to write/edit/submit documentation (session notes, assessments, treatment plans) – I have always been expected to do this off the clock pretty much in order to get my work done. Very difficult to help people
In the way they deserve to be helped when we ourselves are wore out and burnt to a crisp trying to just keep our jobs. And then we get shunned and publicly shamed in the office when we have too many no-shows that week, or our productivity isn’t high enough. It’s assumed it’s something we’re doing wrong.
Not to mention the management which is so far removed from the clinical work and is just happy they don’t have to be stuck in the production hamster wheel they have no empathy and no intentions of making changes. It is very difficult to get promoted within the field as well unless you “are one of them” and fit in with the obsessed with work don’t have a life culture.
Everywhere I’ve worked I’m shamed when I take days off, get punished for it upon returning, its impossible to take time off anyway because they are always so short staffed.
I guest I’m just ranting and venting at the hypocrisy of it all. We are a nation in mental health crisis. We are all wore out and suffering. But yet the ones who are tasked with supporting those with mental health struggles are struggling themselves. Every interview I go on I feel the judgment and criticism from the hiring managers looking over my resume. Never get an offer because of my short gap on my resume – even for non-therapy positions. I guess they see that I won’t play the game. Only recourse I have now is to go into private practice and hope the crumbling economy doesn’t tank that too.