Alternatively titled “Therapy doesn’t work on lawyers.” Or “What would my coworkers think?”
Surprise! Lawyers do go to therapy, therapy works for almost everyone (if done well and with the right person), and your coworkers don’t care. That last one might not be true yet but we’re moving in the right direction.
I wish there was an easy answer to this one. It’s undeniable that there is a stigma against mental health in our society and law firms tend to be behind the cultural curve in all ways. Law firms are getting better about it and are beginning to offer mindfulness courses, which ostensibly shows that they value their employees’ mental and physical health, since mindfulness has been shown to reduce physical symptoms of stress. But how many lawyers out there really know how to use mindfulness and/or self-care effectively? It’s not just about taking five minutes to breathe when you’re upset or going out for dinner during a stressful week. Mindfulness is a practice that constantly runs in the background to monitor your emotional state, even when (or especially when) your emotions are not running high. Self-care requires active self-awareness to know when you need to take a break or, even better, to anticipate when you might need a break later.
But how can you learn these skills? Certainly not by a lunch hour seminar you can attend only once. Therapy is the obvious answer but we run into problems because a law firm is not a single person to whom you can explain that, for you personally, going to therapy once a week is going to make you a happier person and a more productive employee. Instead, we have to work within with a culture that has a long-established set of values that is small-data driven and managed by people who have less business experience than a multi-million dollar company is usually run by. (For ethical reasons, law firms and medical practices can only be owned by licensed lawyers and doctors.) And, as we all are all-too familiar with, the easiest way to quantifiably measure a person’s worth is with numbers: Number of clients, number of billed hours, number of hours in the office, etc. I have had very long conversations with a law partners about all the ways they are losing money by focusing on these numbers, but that’s not why you’re here.
So now what? Unless and until your work culture has progressed, it might be in your best interest to keep your private life private. Look for a therapist who offers evening and weekend hours or is comfortable doing phone sessions.
If you’re wondering – how can a therapist recommend hiding therapy? Isn’t giving in to the stigma part of the problem?
And that’s true; as a therapist and a mental health advocate, I fight against the stigma and the shame. But as I said in an earlier post, the therapist’s first priority is the client’s goals and well-being. If you work in an environment that punishes openness about mental health, then you have three choices: (1) to be open and punished, (2) to find a different environment, or (3) to maintain your privacy. When those are your choices, I think it’s more than understandable to leave the stigma-fighting for someone else.
tl;dr Therapy works for lawyers and the reason you haven’t heard about it is because no one is talking about it until they leave law.