You’re exhausted, fed up and not acting like the parent you want to be. You think you’re suffering from parental burnout and you need help – but how do you find a parental burnout therapist?
No-one tells you this stuff – how to find a therapist. When you google it, it’s just a complete mess – do you need a CBT Therapist? A Counsellor? A Psychologist? A Psychiatrist? There are a thousand types of therapy, which one do you need? What’s a good price for private therapy?
You’re completely confused by all the options and you’re exhausted and can’t think straight. Trying to find a therapist is making you feel more stressed out, not less.
Right, let’s get it sorted. The way I see it, you have three main options, let’s talk them through:
1 - SPEAK TO YOUR GP
Here in the UK, your NHS GP should be your first port of call. Your GP is the gateway to NHS mental health services and will know what services are available in your local area.
It’s no small thing, putting yourself in front of your GP and telling them that you’re struggling as a parent. It can feel hard enough opening up about struggling emotionally to a near stranger, but it’s even more challenging for parents in a culture that suggests parenthood is a joy and a blessing and that parents (especially mothers) take to it naturally and should never complain.
If you have the type of personality that is prone to burnout too, you’re probably the kind of person who prides themselves on independence and competence and hates to ask others for help.
I urge you to hold this understandable reticence and ask for help anyway. A large proportion of GPs’ workload is emotional and psychological rather than purely physical. They’re used to seeing people in distress, they’re pretty unshockable and they want to help.
Your GP may be able to prescribe medication to help lift your mood which you may want to consider. I would suggest that you also ask to be referred for talking therapy. Medication has its place but it won’t solve your problems. Medication is great for lifting your mood and your motivation to work on your problems.
It’s important to remember that there are major limitations on NHS mental health services after years of chronic underfunding. You may have a long wait before seeing someone, there may be some travel involved, it’s unlikely that you will get a therapist who is familiar with parental burnout and you will most likely only be offered a limited number of sessions.
NHS services have the major advantage of being free of charge. If you have the ability to pay for your care and you want more choice over who you see, where you see them and for how long then you may want to consider seeing a private therapist.
2 - FIND A PRIVATE THERAPIST
Finding a private therapist can feel really tricky when you’re not familiar with any of the titles and terms out there.
You could do a google search but the internet is a little like the wild west for people calling themselves therapists.
Unfortunately terms like therapist, counsellor and even psychologist are not protected titles – anyone call call themselves these things. Anyone can give themselves one of this titles, slap up a website and start trading.
That’s scary enough but if you do run into an issue with one of these therapists, they don’t even belong to a professional body that you can complain to. They’re the uninsured boy racers of the therapy world.
I suggest you look for a therapist on a directory site. That way, you know that the professional is suitably qualified and belongs to a professional body. The most well known directory site is Psychology Today.
Psychology Today will allow you to narrow down your search. You can specify a geographical area, a particular issue you’re looking for help with, the type of therapy you want, the gender of your therapist etc. Another brilliant feature is that they allow therapists to upload a 15 second video of themselves so you can get a quick feel for them to help you decide whether you want to call them.
It’s unlikely you’ll find someone on Psychology Today who specialises in parental burnout as it’s such a niche area. But you will find many qualified and experienced psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors and CBT therapists on there.
Clinical and Counselling psychologists have the highest level of education and training (they have doctorates) and are regulated by the Health Care Professions Council. They are trained in various models of psychological therapy and have worked with complex cases.
There are many excellent psychotherapists, CBT therapists and counsellors too. They will generally charge less than psychologists. I recommend you check that they are registered to an organisation like the BACP or UKCP so you know that they adhere to strict professional standards.
I’d recommend picking a couple of therapists that you like the look of and giving them a call to get a feel of how you might ‘click’ with them.
Ask them whether they’ve worked with stress and burnout, especially in parents, in the past. Ask them how they work with clients and how they would begin to help you work through your difficulties.
See whether you feel that you could grow to trust them and work well with them – one of the most important predictors in therapeutic success is the bond you feel with your therapist.
Don’t feel obliged to see someone for therapy if you don’t think you’re going to gel with them or don’t believe that they can help you.
The Parental Burnout Quiz
Curious what your own parental burnout score is? Download the free assessment and get your score – plus expert tips on how to reduce it.
3 - FIND a specialist parental burnout therapist
The best place to find a specially trained parental burnout therapist is by checking the international directory of professionals trained by the Training Institute for Parental Burnout (now renamed the Training Institute for Psychology and Health).
The comprehensive training in diagnosis and treatment of parental burnout is taught by the world leading researchers on parental burnout, Isabelle Roskam and Moira Mikolajczak.
You can be confident that a practitioner from this directory has such a genuine interest in parental burnout that they paid for extra training in this area.
You’ll know that they understand what parental burnout feels like, how it starts, how it worsens and crucially, how to prevent and recover from it.
This training was originally only in French and has only become available in English this year. So you will see from the database that the vast majority of practitioners are French speaking and from countries like Belgium (where the training institute is based), France, Luxembourg and French speaking Canada etc.
I am the only UK-based clinical psychologist on that directory.
GET the help you need
Hopefully, this blog has clarified your options and given you an idea of where to start to look for a parental burnout therapist.
No matter which option you choose, well done for doing it.
Well done for recognising that you have a problem and for taking steps to do something about it.
That’s not an easy thing to do.
It’s only human nature to avoid problems, to deny them, suppress them, to hide away.
We live in an individualistic culture that insists we should be happy and perfect and productive at all times. We’re told to stand on our own two feet and to pull our socks up when times are hard.
Stiff upper lip.
It’s much harder to take the courageous steps of looking at your issues and asking for help. So I commend you for taking these steps.
If you want to talk to a qualified and specialist clinical psychologist about what therapy could look like for you, then please get in touch.
I’d love to hear from you.
