The Balance of Caring: Building Resilience and Self-Care in Helping Professions

In professions like healthcare, education, social work, and counseling, the drive to make a difference in people’s lives is a powerful motivator. However, these roles’ emotional and physical demands can take a significant toll. Long hours, high expectations, and frequent exposure to others’ struggles and adverse experiences can lead to stress, burnout, and emotional exhaustion. So, how can we give our best to others without sacrificing our well-being? The answer lies in building resilience and prioritizing self-care.

Helping others requires a deep emotional commitment, often called empathy—the ability to connect with and understand another person’s feelings, thoughts, and struggles. While this emotional connection is crucial for effective caregiving, it makes professionals more susceptible to burnout and emotional exhaustion. As Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison (2016) point out, it’s essential to regulate emotional engagement in a way that maintains professional empathy without becoming overwhelmed. Resilience, the ability to adapt positively to stressful situations, is vital for coping with the emotional demands of these roles.

To avoid burnout and maintain long-term well-being, it’s important to regularly reflect on our motivations and the rewards we derive from our work. Reconnecting with the purpose of our careers can help restore our sense of direction and re-energize us. Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison (2016) emphasize the importance of balancing the demands of helping others with practices that promote personal well-being—one key element in preventing burnout and compassion satisfaction—the joy of helping those in need. However, many professionals struggle to prioritize their needs, often finding it difficult to set boundaries, take personal time, or recognize early signs of stress.

Building resilience requires a holistic approach to self-care, incorporating physical, professional, relational, emotional, psychological, and spiritual well-being. Skovholt and Trotter-Mathison (2016) suggest that self-nurturing and being mindful of our needs can help maintain energy and emotional health. By connecting with our bodies, emotions, and support systems, we can better manage stress and continue to make a positive impact in our careers. Self-care is everyone’s responsibility, including organizations and the wider community (Chen & Gorski, 2015, as cited in Levine, J. & Zuckerman, 2021). The opposite has led to the perception of self-care as something to achieve rather than a continuous way of living (Levine, J. & Zuckerman, 2021).

Prof. Jaqueline Padilla, MSW, PhD

Walden University

Prof. Jacqueline Padilla is the Bachelor of Social Work Program Coordinator and a full-time faculty member at the Metro Orlando Campus of Ana G. Méndez University. She is completing a Ph.D. in Social Work at Walden University, specializing in Disaster, Crisis, and Intervention. Her research focuses on the impact of vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout in social work, particularly in services for survivors of intimate partner violence. Her work places a particular emphasis on how service providers’ personal histories of trauma affect the quality of care they provide.

Interactive Activity:

Reflect on your self-care practices in the following areas and consider which new strategies you could adopt to enhance your well-being:

Physical (e.g., exercise, sleep, nutrition)

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Professional (e.g., setting boundaries, workload management)

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Relational (e.g., spending time with family and friends)

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Emotional (e.g., stress management, hobbies)

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Psychological (e.g., self-reflection, therapy)

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Spiritual (e.g., mindfulness, meditation)

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What areas do you feel are most in need of attention? How can you prioritize these practices to support better both your health and your ability to care for others?

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Fulfilling the purpose by practicing self-care is not a one-time event but an ongoing process that involves developing skills and strategies to alleviate the emotionally challenging effects of providing services (Skinner, 2015, as cited in Newell, J. 2020). These strategies encompass focusing on our health.

References

Skovholt, T. M., & Trotter-Mathison, M. (2016). The resilient practitioner: Burnout and compassion fatigue prevention and self-care strategies for the helping professions (3rd ed.). Routledge. Skovholt Practitioner Professional Resiliency and Self-Care Inventory (pp. xix–xxii)

Johnson, K., Levine, A., & Zuckerman, R. (2021). More than bubble baths and burnout: Advancing a provider resilience model in field seminar. Field Educator, 11(2), 1–9.

Newell, J. M. (2020). An ecological systems framework for professional resilience in social work practice. Social Work, 65(1), 65–73. https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swz044