Radical Self-Care

Catalog description

Wellness and self-care can be extremely challenging for helping professionals despite the fact that taking care of oneself is critical to survival as professionals and as people. Unfortunately, wellness is often neglected in the modern-day human service professions. This course will challenge behavioral health professionals to consider the ramifications of not taking care of themselves while working with vulnerable individuals and populations who require us to be present and healthy. This course presents the theoretical basis for vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, moral stress, empathetic distress, and burnout from both an ethical and a socio-cultural-political perspective. Also covered is the balance of self-care and community care considering of the privilege of an individualist approach compared to healing in community. Students will be challenged to consider the privileged narrative of doing work that they "love" when they need to pay the bills with ways to enhance satisfaction and support interests in issues of social justice. The Sanctuary Model will be explored as an example of an organizational response to wellness. Most importantly, students will gain hands-on experience from local experts in multiple self-care practices, including self-monitoring, stress management, yoga, meditation, visualization, and journaling. At the end of the course, each student will have a highly detailed and individualized wellness plan that they can implement and adapt as needed. This course is ideal for all helping professionals, especially those who are facing significant life stressors: caregiving for children, aging parents, and other family members; managing financial obligations; and balancing personal, emotional, and mental health.