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What is professional loneliness or isolation. It would be wrong to assume that professional loneliness just relates to spending too little time with friends who happen to be in the same profession as you; the problem is much more complex than that. There is much we miss in our professional life when we miss out on contact with our peers. Specialists in a range of professions have concerns about their lack of communication and collaboration. Professionals are feeling more isolation, missing not just the fellowship but also giving and receiving support and spending time with people who ‘get’ what it is we do during our day. Additionally, we are likely to be missing out on shared information and perspective too, the so-called hive brain.

Problems of professional loneliness are being highlighted amongst Surgeons and Doctors and other professionals driven in part by the lack of opportunities to get together with colleagues in a way that they used to.  In April 2019 the British Medical Council said that Doctors were being affected by a lack of camaraderie in their working lives. The traditional doctor’s only mess, a place for Doctors to recharge and share experiences and gain support has, by all accounts been in decline. More commonly, doctors are grabbing a lunchtime sandwich at their desks and working through their case notes rather than meeting up with fellow medics and sharing the highs, lows and experiences that add to their knowledge base and provide shared camaraderie and support when needed.

As counsellors we have, most likely, felt some degree of isolation ever since we started training, In those early days as we are buzzing after our exciting days at study and  start recounting the days learned theory to our friends and loved ones, we can often see the shutters of interest firmly closing. Equally they get a little hacked off when we start to live and breathe our newly found counselling skills, relating empathically at full power anytime, anyplace, and to anyone unfortunate enough to even ask us the time, until eventually we get the message to turn the volume down.

Of course, while in training, we had our study buddies around us and so potentially this masked the full effect of what the high degree of confidentiality we offer our clients will mean. When we qualify, waving goodbye to our fellow students and tutors, and step out into the world to practice, is when the isolating nature of the work can come into focus.  Certainly, fully absorbing the requirements of confidentiality is when we realise for most of our working lives, as counsellors, we are the faithful silent repositories of our client ‘stuff’,

While Doctors must be aware of confidentiality; they can discuss to their hearts content the internal workings of their patients’ liver without fear of someone else being able to recognize the owner of that particular organ from its description. Providing Doctors don’t tag a name or other obvious identifying details to the liver, then they can almost guarantee they will never come a cropper of the confidentiality requirements they are bound by. It would seem their only boundaries to talking about their, sometimes gruesome, work is having a willing audience, and if not, then at least a captive one.

Markedly, the same is not true for counsellors when they want to discuss the nuances of their work. The reason is that the ‘stuff’ of our clients’ emotional world is made up of the history and reflections of their external world, and we are fully aware any detail of which has the potential to signpost the identity of your client. Sharing feels like a minefield and who wants to face a disciplinary for breaking the counsellor/client contract? Is it any wonder you feel it is easier to never talk about your clients and their inseparable content, unless of course you are in the safe environment of the supervision room when you have the client’s agreement?

 I am sure we are all thankful for our one-to-one supervision, but is it enough?  Plus, of course, it has a cost and that limits most of us to a set number of hours per month.  Also, we tend to stick with one supervisor that we ‘gel’ with. This means we are limited to one person’s perspective and the limits to learning that can bring.

So here they are your 5 Steps to end professional isolation and feel more fellowship with your counselling colleagues

1. Keep in contact with your fellow trainees, yes that sounds pretty obvious, but I think we would all be amazed at the number of people who leave training and fellow trainees behind them and never look back. When we do think back, we might cringe at how naive we were, or that we revealed something in the dreaded personal development classes, that we wished we kept to ourselves. But try and brush that aside and look up those colleagues. Remember that you were all in the same boat back then, and the rewards of rekindling those friendships and acquaintances can be both joyful and meaningful. And if it’s not – your able to handle that right?

2. Look for opportunities to join a group supervision and amend your contract to cover this extra venue to your confidentiality clauses. Usually there are not more than 10 in the group and meet monthly. Giving 3 cases the chance to be shared per meetup. Just make sure the facilitator or any stand-ins are qualified counsellors, preferably supervisors or have a wealth of group facilitators training.

3. Think about joining or even starting a book club focused on looking at counselling theory books. Here there is no training required. Join an existing group or if there isn’t one – start your own. What a great way to share and learn while keeping the all-important theory fresh and vibrant in your mind.

4. Join one or more of the Facebook counselling groups, the discussion on theory and shared knowledge on running your own private practice or even managing your place within an organisation can be both informative and lively.

5. Finally think about mixing up your supervision a bit. If we think about our friendships, we often have several friends with different qualities that we would go to depending on what we were looking for. The blessing of the introverted one – great listeners, insightful and understanding, the one to cheer you up, the one who motivates or has the practical solution. They say no one person can be all things to all people – and the same might be true of supervisors. Could you share your supervision hours around a bit?

Remember united we stand – and divided we miss out on all of the good company that will enrich us.