Wouldn’t it be nice if we all came with the equivalent of washing instructions – what conditions will allow us to produce the best results? Some of us might be able to tolerate high temperatures and a strong spin cycle, others may require a gentler wash and dry in the shade.
In reality we work these variables out with experience, and they may evolve as we go through our career. What we could tackle in the early days might become too much in time, while things we could never even dream of doing at the beginning of our career might become second nature later on.
You may not have full freedom to set up work the way you would prefer, but we can still learn what works best for us as we go and look for opportunities to adjust as we go. So what might be some of the variables we could consider?
Number of total clients: How many people can we have on our books before the details and edges between people starts to disintegrate?
Total number of clients in a week: How many appointments can we offer and still remain present and give people our full attention?
Spread of appointments across a week: How can be best manage our energy? Some may prefer fewer clients each day across the whole week, while other may do better with a more intense schedule on some days to get another day without any appointments.
Kind of presentations: What kind of challenges do we most enjoy working with and where do we feel we offer the most value? This may be to do with specific presenting issues, degree of complexity, and how broad or narrow the range is.
Format of sessions: Do we prefer one-one, couples, families, groups, communities or a mix? Many brief encounters or fewer intensive sessions? In person, by phone, by video, or multimedia?
Setting of sessions: Do we work best in outpatient, inpatient, home visits, residential, out on the community or right out in nature? We may also think about how contained the settings are (e.g. a 50 minute appointment in a dedicated counselling room) or a more informal contact (e.g. across the day in a residential program).
Variety: What kind of work mix offers you the best balance? Some people want to just focus on direct client contact, others prefer a mix of counselling and co-ordination, or a split between offering therapy, projects and offering training.
These are just a few, and there is no right or wrong about what pattern works best for us. It’s more a curiosity of how we find the best way to sustain doing work we care about. Because in the many times I tried to ignore my washing instructions, I often came out the worse for wear like a mangled jumper that was now two sizes too small.
Helen Mentha 