Personal therapy for Israeli school counselors: Prevalence, parameters, and professional difficulties and burnout

Burnout and Psychological Wellbeing Among Psychotherapists: A Systematic Review

Objectives

The general aim of this systematic review is to synthesize, analyze, and critically review existing studies concerning the relationship between sociodemographic, intrapersonal, and work-related factors and burnout, as well as psychological wellbeing among psychotherapists.

Methodology

We performed a structured literature search utilizing the PRISMA framework in the following databases: Web of Science, Scopus, MedLine, PsyARTICLES, ProQuest, and Google Scholar. The most relevant inclusion criteria were quantitative and peer-reviewed articles published in English.

Results

After the selection process, we accepted 52 articles for further systematic review. Thirty-eight studies examined burnout among psychotherapists, while the other 14 studies focused on psychological wellbeing in this sample.

Conclusions

Burnout and wellbeing among psychotherapists are related to numerous sociodemographic (e.g., age, gender), intrapersonal (e.g., coping, personality), and work-related characteristics, including work settings and professional support in this profession (e.g., supervision or personal therapy). However, the high heterogeneity observed between studies in terms of burnout and wellbeing operationalization and measurement warrants more consistent and advanced methodological models of these theoretical constructs in the future in this specific sample.

The Self-focused Practice Questionnaire (SfPQ): Preliminary Psychometric Properties of a Measure of Therapist Self-focused Practice

Background: Therapist self-practice, in its various forms, is common across therapeutic modalities, but a measure of its impact on participants does not yet exist. Aims: This paper describes the development and reliability testing of the ‘Self-focused Practice Questionnaire’ (SfPQ), a measure of self-perceived impact of one's self-focused practice. Method: Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), internal consistency and reliability were assessed in a convenience sample of 112 trainee therapists. Results: Five factors, rating impacts on therapist Personal-self (Awareness of Developmental experiences, Experience of Personal Change and Felt-sense/Self-awareness), and Therapist-self (Internalization of the Model, and Development of Empathy) were identified, with good internal consistency and acceptable to good test–retest reliability. Conclusions: Though more work is needed, these preliminary results support the SfPQ's reliability and validity. The SfPQ is an important measure, which may enhance routine rating of self-focused practice in training institutions.