The Best Clinical Advice I Ever Received - And How It Saved My Career | IP 198

If you've ever lain awake at night worrying about a client, found yourself replaying sessions in your head, or wondered where healthy compassion ends and unhealthy responsibility begins, this episode is for you.

Today I've shared the single most important lesson a mentor ever taught me about surviving this work with both your heart and your humanity intact. 

It's a lesson that carried me through some of the hardest moments of my career—and one I now find myself passing along to therapists, coaches, and healers again and again.

In this episode, you’ll hear…

• What "critical distance" really means—and why every helping professional needs it.
• The early career experience that forever changed the way I care for clients.
• The warning signs that you're becoming emotionally over-involved.
• Practical ways to regain perspective before burnout takes hold.

My message here is not that you should care less… It's that you must care wisely... so that you can continue serving people with compassion, clarity, and longevity—without sacrificing yourself in the process.

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear your story! 

Have you ever struggled to maintain healthy emotional boundaries in your work? Send me a note—I read every email.

And if you're enjoying the deeper conversations we've been having here lately, would you consider leaving a quick five-star review? It really does help more people discover the show. And you know how much I appreciate that.

And I appreciate you for being here. 

~Wendy

P.S. Remember: You are responsible to your clients. You are not responsible for your clients. Sometimes that distinction is the healthiest gift you can give both yourself and the people you serve.

_______________

• Free Resources: Get your copy of some of my most popular tools and guides right here! >>  https://www.wendypittsreeves.com/free-resources
• Quick Start Consult: If you’re ready to get out of your own way, this 1:1 coaching work session could make all the difference. Learn more here.
• Want to be a Guest on Ideal PracticeTM? Submit your application here. 

Transcript

Wendy Pitts Reeves 0:00

You're listening to Ideal Practice, episode number 198. Today, guys, I'm going to share with you the very best piece of advice that was ever given to me by a mentor when it came to how to survive, how to survive in an industry where we deal with really hard things every day. You guys know this, we are healers, and our own lives intersect with the lives of our clients in a deeply personal way, right? Well, this little bit of advice, it absolutely, totally saved me in the earliest days of my career during a really, really tough time. And it has served me well ever since, to this day. This is kind of a serious topic today, guys, but it's one that I think you will thank me for. I find myself sharing this with coaching clients pretty often, and it occurred to me recently that, you know, maybe you could use this too. So that's where we're going today. Stay tuned. Hi, I'm Wendy Pitts Reeves, and with over two decades of experience in the private practice world, I've built my six-figure business while learning a lot of lessons the hard way. This is the first podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of energy, alignment, and strategy to build a practice that is profit-centered, but people forward. This is the Ideal Practice Podcast. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Ideal Practice Podcast. This is Wendy, Wendy Pitts Reeves, your host. And as always, of course, I am thrilled to be hanging out with you. I love being here with you every week. I can't remember if I've told you this already. I don't think I have, but I have been traveling for the last few weeks. I took a couple of weeks and went up to wander around Washington State. Did I tell you this already? I don't think I have. You know, the tricky thing about podcasts, y'all, is that you are always recording for the future. And sometimes your future, past, and present get a little bit scrambled. Get a little bit scrambled. So if you hear me repeating myself sometime, I'm not losing my mind. I am just lost in my calendar, which I hope happens to other podcasters, because it certainly happens to me. But anyway, as I am recording this, I am only a week or so back from having been on a trip to Washington State where I spent a couple of weeks wandering around, visiting with friends, seeing the sites. In the past, many of you know I've got several friends who live up that area that I met through a mastermind that I was in that live on the coast in Bellingham, which is absolutely just precious. I love that town so much. And I now have a few coaching clients up in that area, which is also a treat because I got to meet one of them while I was on this trip. Hello, Vickery. Shout out to you, my friend. What a treat it was to see you in person and to see your gorgeous new space, your new office looking over the Cascade Mountains. Doesn't get any better than that. That was a real treat. That was a real treat. It's always a delight when I get to meet my coaching folks in person because I don't get to do that very often. And it's always, always, always precious. So lovely to have hung out with Vickery for a while and had a cup of coffee and a great tour of her new office. And then the other thing that I did on this trip that was new, I typically stay on the on the along the coast, which is deep and green and forested and gorgeous and wild. And I often will spend some time in the San Juan Islands. I will usually do a paddle of some sort or go out and hang out on one of the islands. And I did some of that this time.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 3:51

But what I did that was new this time was I drove up and over the Cascades, going east from Seattle into the central part of Washington. And I'd never been there before. And guys, let me tell you, that was not like anything I have seen. Like it was really amazing at how that state changes when you drive across it. Like really amazing. So going from the east, the uh west coast over the mountains into central Washington was like driving from Canada to Arizona in an hour in an hour. Like one minute I was in the middle of Deep Forest Green. The next minute I was in the Red Rocks. Like I felt like I was at the Grand Canyon. It was unbelievable.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 4:33

And I was there because I was meeting up with some dear friends who had invited me to join them at a three-day music festival that was hosted by Brandy Carlisle at the Gorge. And yes, this is the part where you are fully welcome to be jealous. And if you want to tell me how jealous you are, I will just soak it up and love it. Oh Lord, that was quite an experience. I have never done that before. That was brand new to me. And I'm really glad I was with my friends because one of them in particular is an eight on the Enneagram, which is exactly who you want to be spearheading an event like this, because it was not for the faint of heart. It was not. We camped, we survived hurricane force winds one night in the camp. Yes, I was in a tent. That's the story all by itself. But we got to attend three days worth of music with some of the most iconic women artists in the industry. And I will forever be grateful that I got to be there. Like there were seriously many moments in those few days that brought tears to my eyes because there was so much love and empowerment and mutual respect across all ages, all types of people. It was really, really, really beautiful to see. And it is what I think it's kind of like my favorite best thing about business, right? About good business. And the music industry can be harsh and hard, but sometimes it can be beautiful. And that's what Brandi Carlisle creates around her. And it was it was quite an honor to be there. I was really, really, really thrilled to be there. It was also exhausting. So I was also glad to leave there and head back to the coast and have a little solo time on one of the islands.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 6:17

But anyway, that's that's where I've been. I am wondering where you've been and what you've been up to. I hope the summer is being kind to you so far. I hope work is going well. I hope business is rocking. I know for a lot of you this is a this is a quieter time. A lot of folks go on vacation in the summer. Our caseloads tend to drop a little bit. Practice might be a little bit quieter. And for a lot of you, you may worry during this period of time. This isn't what I'm here to talk about today, but I will just sort of plug this in real quick. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it because it is part of the natural ebb and flow of owning a practice. And what I encourage you to do is take a break yourself if you can and enjoy a slower time. It's a great time to catch up on some of the administrative tasks you've got in your business. It's a great time to maybe make some plans for what you want to do this fall. Like enjoy the slower pace because it will not last. Things will pick back up again. So just enjoy it while you can. And with that, let's get into what I want to talk about today. So, a few years ago, back when I was still running a full group practice and I still had a full caseload, I was seeing like 25, 26 people a week. I worked with various populations. And one of the things I have always done a fair amount of is work with people who are struggling with addictions. And there was a time when I was working with a client who I adored who was fighting a really, really serious addiction that was fairly advanced. This client had a corporate job, was functioning well in the community, but was barely, barely hanging on behind the scenes. And in this particular case, the drug of choice for this person was crack. Now, if you've done any addiction work, you know that it's all hard, it doesn't matter what it is, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for anyone who's ever fighting this battle. It is absolutely incredible to witness. And this was no different. But of all the folks I've worked with, I would say that this person stands out in a lot of ways because they were so incredibly brave and trying so incredibly hard to get well. They didn't want to do inpatient. There were a lot of financial concerns, weren't sure how they could protect their job if they did that. There were lots of reasons, and that's not unusual, of course. But they were dead serious about getting well. And so we took that on. And I I just can't say enough about the the strength and courage that this person brought to the table. But their illness was serious and, as I said, fairly advanced. And although I cared deeply about this person, and I've had a lot of experience with this, so I poured everything I had into that work. I lived with the knowledge that at any point I could lose them. Every week, week after week after week, this person would come into my office, we would sit and talk about whatever the latest drama was, and there was some pretty much every week. Might have involved the law, might have involved physical injury, might have involved financial crises, might have involved some pretty serious social problems. Whatever it was, we talked about it, we processed it, we actively worked on building a support system around this person using every tool that I know. And we're making progress, but it was so fragile, so fragile. And every single time that this person walked out of my office, I would have two feelings. One was wow, that was good. That was so good. I am so proud of them. And I would say to myself, remember, Wendy, they could die before next week. Remember that they could die before next week. I literally would say that to myself every time they walked out the door. It was tough. It was tough.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 10:47

How I managed my own feelings about this client who I cared deeply for, how I managed that, all went back to this piece of advice that I was given by a mentor early in my career. When I first got started, y'all, I worked at a psychiatric hospital for a lifetime or two. That is such a good experience. And I'm just going to share a personal bias that I have here. If you are in private practice and you have not done some kind of work in an agency setting, community mental health, or an inpatient psychiatric setting, I personally think you should do that. I think there are a lot of things that happen in private practice that you will be better able to handle if you have had that experience.

Wendy Pitts Reeves 11:32

When I started my private practice, I had been working in a psychiatric setting for about 10 years. So I'd already been through quite a bit. Already been through quite a bit. Somewhere along the way, while I was working at this particular hospital, there was a psychiatric nurse. They are the best, y'all. You learn a lot from psych nurses. And this particular nurse, while we were going through a very difficult time, which I will tell you about in a minute, she said to me, Wendy, you're going to learn that if you're going to survive in this kind of work, you have to learn how to maintain critical distance. You got to learn how to do that. And I can remember saying, looking at her, like, well, what is that? What is that and what does that mean? And she explained to me the way, the way I remember it was that she described it as having a type of porous buffer between you and your clients, between you and the patients, between you and those that you serve. It is porous in that your feelings about that person get through. If you don't feel, if you don't care, if you're not doing this from a deep heart-centered place, you're not going to be any good at it. For all kinds of reasons. And in return, their feelings for you and their impact on you get through too. You feel that too. But you have to have this porous buffer, she said. Or you won't last. She said, you have to learn how to care, care deeply, care from a real place, but not take it home with you. Not take it home with you. Critical distance is about caring deeply and being present without being consumed. And I'm going to tell you, it takes a while to learn that. New helpers, new healers, those who are new to the work really struggle with this. And sometimes even folks who've been in it for a long time, but we struggle with it because, y'all, we enter this profession to begin with because we care, right? We care a lot. In fact, one of the challenges is that we care so much that we often care about our clients more than ourselves. And all of the sort of mindset stuff I talk about on here all the time, that gets all tangled up because we associate caring more with being responsible for our clients, often or sometimes, maybe not often, but sometimes to our own detriment. And here's the challenge of that. If you don't learn how to care deeply, but have that type of buffer, you will take this work home with you. And when you do, it's not going to serve you. And I'm going to tell you this, this nobody tells you this, it's not going to help your clients either. It does not do them any good if you're waking up at night worrying about them, if you're thinking about them in the shower, if you're thinking about them while you're having dinner with your kids. It's not going to help your clients because what's going to happen is you will gradually be setting yourself up for burnout. You will come to resent the work because it doesn't let go of you. You will find yourself exhausted. And that's no good for anybody. Because when you are full of resentment, when you are exhausted, when you can't stop thinking about your clients, you know what's going to happen? You're going to make a mistake. You're going to make a mistake. You're going to overreach. You're going to cross a boundary. Or you're going to miss something somewhere along the way. Or you're going to react in some way that comes from an emotional place, a purely emotional place, rather than a grounded, centered, clinically strategic and appropriate place. And ultimately what happens is you end up feeling responsible for choices and outcomes and events that are not yours. Learning how to maintain critical distance is the number one survival skill that I personally believe every single person who works in any kind of healing arts must have. Whether you are in mainstream medicine or alternative, whether you're a massage therapist or a yoga teacher, or you're working in foster care, or you're in private practice. All of it. About it to help you if that's happening. Okay, I'm going to tell you exactly what to do. Before I do that, can I just take a little bit of a sidestep for just a second before I get into the meat of this and say to you, can I make a personal request? Some of you have been telling me lately that part of what you love about this podcast, I'm hearing this from more of them more people, is that we go deeper here. We have deeper conversations that address not just the strategy and the tactics and you know that kind of side of business, but also our hearts, our souls, and our minds and what we bring to it. And that whether it's just me talking to you like tonight, or whether it is our conversation that I'm having with one of our guests, that we tend to we tend to go deep. And a lot of you seem to like that, which makes me happy. I appreciate that because that's that is indeed that's not just one of my goals. It's just what I like. I am, after all, a therapist, right? So I enjoy a deeper conversation. But if that's true, and if you are really enjoying this podcast and you're getting something different out of it than you get from other places, would you please do me a favor and give me a thumbs up, a five-star review? Even better, write a few notes about what you love about the podcast. I can't tell you how much that helps me. All you have to do is go to Apple, to wherever you listen to podcasts on Apple, or you can go to Spotify. Most places that you listen to this will have a way for you to do this. Some of you have asked me to write out for you exactly how to do it. I'm just gonna say, I think you can figure it out. Go look wherever you find my podcast and scroll to the bottom of the program page. Usually that's where you're gonna find the instructions. There will be a place where you can just submit, like, you know, how many, a five-star review. And there will also be an option to write what you think about it. You don't have to do that, but it really does help me. And I hardly ever ask for that. I need to do a better job of asking for that, actually, because it does help. So I just wanted to mention that before I get into this. And I really appreciate those of you who take the time to do that. I know it's a pain, but I'm grateful for it because it really does help. So thank you for that. All right, and with that, let me get back to this. Let's talk about this. So let me tell you the story where I had to learn this and I had to learn it the hard way. If I can do this. So, very, very early, y'all, in my early 20s, I was not yet a psychotherapist. I don't even think I had started grad school yet. I think I was in between undergraduate and graduate. And I was working as a frontline introductory level staff at a psychiatric hospital. It was a really good hospital. It did, this particular place did really good work. And this was back before managed care when we had more freedom to keep people longer and to do better things. It really was kind of a golden age in a way. We could keep people sometimes for months, whatever it took to help them get better. So the work was deep and rich and powerful. I was a psychiatric, I would call it a psych tech. We were called mental health associates or MHAs. Our main job was to basically be on the unit working with patients, with inpatients, and sort of monitoring them, engaging with them on a day-to-day basis. We were the ones who made sure they were okay, made sure they went to meals, hung out with them, played cards. We did everything from keeping them alive to running ping pong tournaments, you know, whatever, whatever we needed to do. It was kind of like being a friend, but always with this sort of professional boundary, of course. But we got to know people very deeply because we spent hours and hours with them every single night, five nights a week or five days a week. I say nights because I worked second shift. So that's that's how I tend to think about it. And at one point, there was a young woman in the in the hospital that I really, really, really liked. I think if we had known each other outside of that setting, we would have been friends. She was actually a little bit older than me at the time. I was quite young, early 20s. She was late 20s. She was fierce, she was strong, she was brave. She had come from another state. She had come from a very poor rural background. This is part of why I love this place, because they treated folks whether they had money or not. I've talked about, I've told that story in a few other episodes in the past. So she got really, really good care, even though she did not have the funds to support it. And as you can sort of imagine, the background that this person had. And I just I cared about her very much. And she'd been there for a while, and it was time to start trying to kind of ease her back out into the world. And so the physician that was in charge of her care told her that they wanted her to go home. They wanted her to take a pass, go home for the weekend, back to her state, back to her community, try things out at home, come back, which we did back then. People would do that. They would get a pass and they would leave for a few days and come back. And she was not ready to do that. She told that physician, if you send me home, we'll I won't be back because I'll kill myself if you send me home. She actually said that, and this physician sent her on a pass anyway. And yep, that's exactly what happened. This was really, really early for me. I had never experienced anything close to this before. Did I mention how much I cared about this person? I'm gonna tell you it almost Undid me. I had so much trouble after that. For weeks, I couldn't stop crying. I couldn't stop thinking about her. I kept thinking about what I could have said or done to convince the treatment team to have made a different plan. I kept I kept trying to think about what kind of safety options could we have put in place to have made it better for her. Like I just, you know, you do the I did the things that you do, right? You question everything. And because I was so young, like I had all kinds of like spiritual questions and energy questions and life questions. I really, really, really, really, really struggled with it. And there were lots of things I did to cope. I talked to lots of people. I I am blessed, y'all. I am fortunate. I have always had people in my life who love me and care about me. And I have always had people I trust and look up to, both in my family and outside of my family, that I could turn to for guidance, for comfort, for wisdom. And I did that. I went and spoke to someone who had been sort of a mentor of mine in school. I went and spoke to a psychologist that I respected. I went and spoke to the minister that I had at the time, who was someone I absolutely adored and looked up to, who was very, very wise. I spoke to my my folks. I talked to lots of people. And I talked to that nurse practitioner. Not nurse practice, psych nurse, the psych nurse who was she was like my supervisor on the floor, basically. And that's when she said to me, that's when she said to me, Wendy, you have got to learn how to maintain critical distance. It does not mean you don't care. It means you care consciously and carefully with a professional buffer. And I'll tell you, it took me a while. It took me a while, but it was a hell of a lesson to learn early on. And it has served me well because one of the one of the biggies, well, I tell you what, I'm gonna come I'll I'll tell you kind of what the ultimate lesson, what the ultimate point of all of this is in a moment. But let me talk to you about if you find yourself in a situation where you are dealing with a client that is really, really, really challenging, or you are facing a part of human behavior that is hard to face, or you are tasked with intervening in a family system that takes everything you've got. Whatever it is, and it will happen, it will happen if you are working in mental health. And I don't know if this happens for folks who work in the, like if you're a nutritionist or a physical therapist or a reiki practitioner or a massage therapist, I don't know if you deal with this kind of stuff or not. But I have to, I have to think that in most areas of work, whatever it is, you're gonna have these moments, one way or another, when you you've you kind of come up against something that just feels bigger than you are. This is life. And this is what it means to be a healer. I want to I want to tell you kind of what the warning signs are that you might be in trouble, and I'm gonna tell you what to do about it. The warning signs are, the warning signs are exactly what I just described. If you find yourself feeling tearful, if you find yourself thinking about this client all the time, if you find yourself feeling this sort of really heightened level of anxiety, if you find yourself tempted to break boundaries, and y'all, I'm hoping you know what these are. If you aren't clear about this and you need to get some consultation or supervision about it, do that. But if you are tempted to pay a bill for them, that's a warning sign. If you are tempted to go to their home and check on them and when you would not normally do that, that's a warning sign. If you're waking up in the middle of the night thinking about them, obsessing over them, that's a warning sign. If you are more reactive, more emotional, that's a warning sign. In fact, heads up guys, this is a little tricky part about this that nobody talks about. If you are having very strong emotional feelings about a client, positive or negative, that's a warning sign. If you like somebody a whole lot, and like you kind of wish you did know them outside of practice, and you know that you would have hung out with them if you could have even more reason to be checking your own reactions. Positive or negative, if you have very strong feelings about somebody, that's that's kind of a flag. I won't say it's a red flag, maybe an orange flag, maybe a yellow flag, maybe a yellow flag, caution flag. But it's something to pay attention to, okay? So all of the things I just laid out for you. If any of if you are experiencing any of those, I urge you to take it seriously and to go tell yourself, I need to figure this out. And what do you do to figure it out? Well, there's a couple of things that I always tell people. The number one thing is go talk to a colleague. Ideally, if it's safe, if you've got good people to turn to, I would recommend that you go to your supervisor if you have a supervisor. If you don't, if you have a mentor, if you have a therapist of your own, which I hope you do, or I hope you have had or will have. If you are part of a consultation group, which I strongly recommend. If you're in a group practice, go to a colleague down the hall that you respect and that you trust. Early in my career, there were times when I worked in various facilities where I did not trust my supervisor or I did not have strong clinical support. Remember, I told you I was in the field for a good 10 years before I went into private practice. I'd had quite a bit of experience and I knew enough to know when I was getting good advice and when I wasn't because I was lucky. I got I got trained by some really, really good people. And when I was with people whose guidance was not, I knew not that strong, I also knew not to listen to it, right? So sometimes I would just go, I would call people that I'd worked with that I knew and respected, and I would say, I've got a really tricky situation and I could use some advice. Can I come and meet with you? Sometimes I would pay people for consultation. Therapists that I knew, profess uh professionals in my community that I knew were good at a certain type of situations. Can I can I buy an hour of your time and come get some consultation? Because I could really use an outside perspective about this case. So the very number one thing to do once you recognize that you've that you've got something going on, is go talk to somebody about it. Colleague, supervisor, mentor, paid consultant, wherever you need to go. Another thing you could do is ask somebody else to take that case, depending upon the situation. If you can ask someone else to step in for a while, if you can ask someone else to share it with you, you can bring people on as a co-therapist. There are situations I can think of where that has been perfectly appropriate. It's also fine to just refer somebody out when you realize that they would be better served elsewhere. So talk to somebody about it, hand the case over to somebody else if you can, take breaks from it if you can. Practice all the mindful techniques that you that I know many of you already know that can help you sort of self-regulate, right, your own nervous system. Make sure that you are doing things like honoring your boundaries, not working long hours, taking days off, taking vacation, doing the things that keep your body rested, engaging in the rest of your life in a healthy way. The point is talk to somebody about these cases so that you are keeping your head in the game and your feet on the ground. And if it's too much and you need to step away from it, find a professional, appropriate, ethical way to do that. Okay? Okay, so the person that I talked about at the very beginning, this client that I was having who was struggling with this addiction, I want to tell you that I lived with that fear. I consciously reminded myself every time I saw her that I could lose her. And I have good news. She made it. She made it. It was really touch and go for a while, but she made good choices one right after the other, and her life did get better. Much better. Last time I heard from her, she had been clean and sober for four or five years and was still going strong. But you know, it it could have turned out differently, and it was important that I was aware of that all the way through. And with that, let me share with you the ultimate point of all of this. This was this was something that was shared with me by one of my favorite coaches a while back, and it too has served me well, and it goes right along with everything we're talking about here. And that is always remember that you are responsible to your clients. You are not responsible for your clients. The choices that they make, the actions they take, what they are willing and able to do or not do is up to them. And anytime, I will tell you this with decades of experience. Anytime I start thinking I have more power than I really do, clients have a way of reminding you where your limits are. So never forget that. Never forget that, yes, you are responsible for showing up for them. You're responsible for bringing your best to them, you are responsible for serving them with all that you can in terms of your clinical skills. But you are not responsible for what they do with it. That's up to them. Okay? Important to keep those two things straight. And if you are struggling with this, if you've had a situation you're not sure how to handle, or if you've been through this and you've got a story you want to share, by all means, tell me. Send me an email, wendy at wendypitsreeves.com and share your story with me. If you have some advice that you'd like to pass on, or you have something that someone said to you that has helped you, I'd love to hear that too. And thank you for hanging out with me today. Like I said, I knew this would be a little bit of a heavy topic, but it's an important one. So going forward, guys, I hope you have an awesome week. Bottom line, protect your heart, but don't close it. Serve your clients well, but don't take them home with you. And never forget who the boss is and who's really in charge of their lives, because it ain't us. All right, all right. Have a great week, everybody, and I will see you next week right here on the Ideal Practice Podcast. Bye now. Hey, y'all. If this program has become important to you, if ideal practice matters, it would mean so much to me if you'd be willing to take just a minute to do one or two of the following things. First of all, would you follow or subscribe to the show here at Ideal Practice? Following me helps you because you'll never miss an episode, but it helps me as well for all kinds of reasons. To do that, all you have to do is go to the show page for Ideal Practice on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. There, just click on the plus sign that you'll usually find in the top right hand corner, or click on the word follow that you're going to find somewhere there on that page. Of all the things, this really is the most important thing you can do for the podcast itself. While you're there, it would be extra special if you would be willing to give me a five-star rating. And even better than that, a review with your own words. Your words matter. And when you write what you feel, what you think, you uplift and encourage others. And I love that. If you want to go a step further than that, take your favorite episode or two, one of the ones that has meant a lot to you, and share it with a friend. Could you do one or two of those things for me? I promise I will love you forever. You guys matter to me, and I value your support more than I can possibly say. Thank you, sweet friend, for anything you can do to help me out and support the show. I'll see you again soon.