Healthcare professionals committed to supporting the vulnerable experience alarmingly high rates of suicide, depression, burnout, and stress. Many find it difficult or choose not to care for their own well-being. What causes this issue? I want to discuss two perspectives: the external conditions and inner constellations.
The External, Structural Conditions
External conditions refer to the outside factors that hinder healthcare workers from forming a healthy relationship with their work. Healthcare workers face challenging circumstances, including long shifts, weekend availability, heavy patient loads, staff shortages, financial pressures and funding constraints, along with emotional and physical demands.
These factors that healthcare professionals face are often challenging to shift but certainly not impossible. Change tends to be slow, as it relies on broader systemic adjustments in policy and organizational structures; hence, it depends on external changes, which are difficult to implement since they concern the collective and require a collective attitude shift. Advocacy from associations and non-profits is crucial for advancing these changes, but it demands a collaborative effort.
The Inner Constellation
This refers to individuals’ psychological relationship with their roles, particularly their unconscious tendency to over-identify with the persona of a helper, healer, or savior. This often leads to overextending oneself, practicing excessive altruism, and neglecting personal needs. While external conditions may amplify or alleviate these tendencies, the responsibility for managing them primarily lies with us.
At its essence, this domain highlights the importance of personal agency—the capacity to identify and meet our own needs, reveal unconscious behaviors tied to our roles as healthcare providers or helping professionals, and develop habits that nurture a reflective and compassionate approach towards ourselves. Essentially, this process hinges on our readiness to form a deep and dedicated relationship with our inner world. This responsibility is entirely within our control, but it requires commitment, time, resources (both emotional and material), and a sincere desire to practice self-care. Embracing responsibility for our wellness is not only empowering but also liberating.
We adopt a mature and responsible stance by taking our lives and work conditions into our own hands instead of relying on institutions or insurance systems to recognize our struggles, acknowledge the immense expectations placed upon us, and provide the resources, understanding, and appreciation we deserve. In a sense, we choose to be our own parents, assuring our inner child that we will care for them regardless of external circumstances. We commit to standing up for ourselves and refuse to live passively by following the decisions of the collective. By daring to seize our fate and stopping our blind adherence to outer (or collective) expectations, we take a step toward what Jung referred to as the individuation process.