Susan Fink looks forward to Tuesdays at 3 p.m.
That slot has become a time of refuge for her. When she can download the stressors of her job to a group of people who understand. When she can engage in “mindfully mindless” conversation.
As a mental health provider specializing in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, Fink works with clients suffering from trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. And since she could no longer physically go to the clinic where she works, Cottonwood Creek Counseling, because she’s in the high risk group for COVID-19, she lost the ability to commiserate with co-workers.
So when Fink heard a virtual support group for therapists was starting, she responded with conviction.
“Hell yeah, I’m there,” she recalled saying.
With the coronavirus pandemic affecting the mental health of Utahns, various programs have arisen. Intermountain Healthcare started its Emotional Health Relief Hotline in April. The state unveiled its Live On campaign a few weeks ago.
But those programs are meant to serve patients. One of the co-founders of the Amethyst Center for Healing in Salt Lake City thought it might be a good idea to start a chat for mental health professionals from her practice and others she knew after they expressed needing an outlet for their own feelings and stressors.
“For me it’s helpful to just have a room full of people where I don’t have to put on a happy face or pretend that I have it all together because I don’t have it all together right now,” said Martha Burkett Fallis, who initiated the support group. “I’m in a pandemic just like everybody else is.”
The virtual support group is held via Google Meet, but also incorporates an ongoing Slack channel Burkett Fallis said is popular. It started in mid-April and and has a handful of regular attendees, plus several play that show up depending on their schedule.
The conversation topics vary, but the weekly meetings function more like group therapy sessions than casual hangouts among friends or colleagues, said Jana Fulmer, the other co-founder of Amethyst. Fulmer had heard from colleagues who said that since they transitioned to working from home, they found it difficult to find the line between when work started and ended.
The group, she said, was a way to find that distinction.
“I think [the group is] trying to recreate that sense of connection then recreate that sense of like, OK this is not a meeting about work, this is not a clinical session,” Fulmer said. “This is a moment for people who are doing similar work to just share eye contact, even if it’s through a screen through a camera.”
There was one week the group couldn’t meet for its weekly chat because the moderators were unavailable. She had forgotten and waited to be let in the room for 10 minutes. When she remembered it was canceled, she felt sad and later noticed a difference in her mood that week.
“As quote-unquote professional caretakers, which is basically what we are, it’s really easy to lose the self-care,” Fink said. “So having it scheduled regularly, weekly, where there’s a thing that I do for my own self-care, it was sad to not have it that week.”
Members of the group said they would support keeping the weekly virtual sessions even after the pandemic ends and things to back to normal. It could also be a way to practice what they preach to their clients on a regular basis, they said.
“I really enjoy this group,” Burkett Fallis said. “It’s so beneficial for me to able to reach to people when I’m like, ‘I’m hanging on by my fingernails.’ And I think it’s very important to the other people who are are there too.”
Fink doesn’t see her regular therapist weekly because she’s not at a point where she needs that, she said. But having the virtual outlet has positively benefited her own mental health during a time the pandemic is effecting everyone, including the professionals.
“People don’t always think about that the helpers need help too sometimes,” Fink said.
