The Emotionally Burdened Psychotherapist: Personal and Situational Risk Factors

Objective: Psychotherapists' experiences of emotional burdens and distress in their personal lives can compromise their professional functioning, as well as undermine their own wellbeing. To identify preventative measures, we need more knowledge about the personal and situational risk factors that contribute to therapists' emotional burdens. Method: From a large-scale international study of psychotherapists (N = 12,036), we analyzed a scale of Personal Burdens (PB) as a criterion variable with different sets of predictors: (a) age and gender; (b) childhood family functioning (e.g., trauma/abuse; early care quality); (c) dimensions of self (as experienced in close personal relationships); (d) current work satisfaction; and (e) current life stressors (financial and health worries), examining the relative importance of these predictors. Scores on attachment avoidance and anxiety were also included (as Step 6) for a subsample (N = 1,243) which had responded to a standard measure of those dimensions. Finally, we investigated whether the association of personal self (in the full sample) and attachment dimensions (in the subsample) depended on therapist gender and age cohort (Steps 7 & 8). Results: The most salient predictors of therapists' PB were current worries; early trauma; experiences of self in close relationships (e.g., being demanding and/or reclusive); low work satisfaction; an anxious attachment style (especially for male therapists) and younger age. The model with all predictors explained almost 30% of the variance in PB. Conclusions: Both personality-related and past and current life circumstances contributed to therapists' emotional burdens. Implications for prevention and selfcare are suggested. Public Significance Statement Both personality-related, and past and current life circumstances contributed considerably to therapists' experience of emotional burdens. Those most at risk for emotional burdens reported more financial and health worries; early trauma in their own upbringing; had a more demanding and reclusive manner of relating in their close personal relationships; were younger; and reported low work satisfaction. We also found that those who scored higher on attachment anxiety were more prone to reporting a higher level of personal burdens, especially if male. This knowledge is useful in targeting helpful preventative measures for psychotherapists.