Therapy for Healthcare Workers – Moorestown, NJ
As a healthcare worker, you know firsthand that caring for patients is deeply rewarding—but it can also take a toll. You give so much of yourself every day, often working long hours, carrying heavy responsibilities, and managing emotional situations that most people never see. Over time, the stress, fatigue, and pressure to keep going can leave you feeling overwhelmed and worn down.
At Moorestown Integrative Wellness, we understand what you’re carrying, which is why we provide compassionate therapy for healthcare workers in Moorestown, New Jersey. Whether you’re a doctor, nurse, EMT, technician, pharmacist, or another kind of healthcare professional, our therapy services are designed to give you a safe place to pause, breathe, and focus on your own well-being.
Specialized Therapy for Healthcare Workers in Moorestown, NJ
Our team of licensed therapists understands the unique challenges that come with working in healthcare. From compassion fatigue to burnout, we work with many different kinds of healthcare professionals who give so much of themselves every day and feel depleted as a result.
All too often, healthcare workers are the last to seek help for themselves. And that’s why we put you first with our therapy for healthcare workers in Moorestown, NJ. With practical tools that fit into your demanding schedule, you can begin to release stress, feel grounded, and regain a sense of balance in both your work and personal life.
Services We Offer
At Moorestown Integrative Wellness, we believe that the wellness of our community rests on the wellness of our community’s caregivers. We are here to support you during this challenging time.
We provide:
- Individual psychotherapy to healthcare workers and caregivers
- Telehealth visits
- Wellness and resilience workshops and trainings
- Consulting services and programming for healthcare organizations and hospitals to support staff wellness and resilience
Our Background: Firsthand Experience Working With Healthcare Workers
Dr. Kurzyna, our executive director, is a health psychologist who has worked in hospitals treating the psychological needs of medical patients for over a decade. During the coronavirus pandemic, the effects of health care worker burnout hit home. Ever since, she has made burnout prevention a central focus of her professional practice right here at Moorestown Integrative Wellness.
During her time at Jefferson University Hospital, she developed and ran a self-care and burnout prevention group for neurology residents and staff nurses. More recently, as a health psychologist at Hackensack Meridian Health, she developed and ran an evidence-based, hospital-wide, nursing wellness program to reduce nursing burnout in addition to an evidence-based, medical resident resilience and burnout prevention program.
In her clinical practice, many of those whom she treats are health care workers and caregivers. If you’re a healthcare worker near Moorestown, NJ who is feeling exhausted and burned out, know that you are not alone.
While burnout and compassion fatigue have been on the rise for years, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically increased the need for mental health support for health care workers. Post-pandemic, many health care workers are experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Vicarious Trauma.
What Is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?
PTSD is a mental health challenge that may occur in individuals who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event. People with PTSD often feel intense emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, and detachment from friends, family, and community members. People with PTSD may relive the event via intrusive memories, flashbacks and nightmares; avoid anything that reminds them of the trauma; and have anxious feelings they didn’t have before that are so intense that their lives are disrupted.
What Is Vicarious Trauma?
The negative effects associated with witnessing patients’ pain, trauma, and suffering
You may be experiencing post traumatic symptoms or symptoms of vicarious trauma if you have experienced the following:
- Intrusive thoughts, experiencing disruptive or unwanted thoughts about work when you are not there
- Sleep disturbance; difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, and nightmares
- Avoidance of things that remind you of the traumatic experience
- Distressing emotions such as intense anxiety, anger, fear and sadness
- Hyperarousal/hypervigilance - feeling on edge, or easily angered or irritated
- Difficulty concentrating
- Withdrawing from loved ones
- Dread of work or certain work situations
- Disruption to world view, feeling a deep sense that the world is unsafe
- Can’t stop crying or find yourself crying over what would not normally be upsetting: a song on the radio, or a commercial
- Reduced ability to feel sympathy and empathy
Common coping strategies which may increase symptoms:
- Isolating from others
- Using alcohol or drugs to “take the edge off”
- Overeating
- Outbursts of anger at loved ones or strangers
- Guilt, self-blame, and self-criticism
- Overworking
- Neglecting one’s own needs
- Denial
What Is Burnout?
Burnout is the terminal phase of professional distress and is characterized by feelings of depersonalization, a feeling of not being real, being outside yourself and treating others as objects or numbers. Emotional exhaustion, feeling fatigued when facing work and career dissatisfaction- a diminished sense of personal accomplishment and low self-value, feeling that what you do does not matter (Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Those most susceptible to burnout are often those most dedicated, conscientious, responsible and motivated.
What Is Compassion Fatigue?
Compassion fatigue involves a decline in one’s energy, desire and ability to love, nurture and care for others. People experiencing compassion fatigue may feel they have lost their ability to empathize with another person’s suffering (Coetzee & Klopper, 2010; Gilmore, 2012; Stewart, 2009).
What Is Resilience?
Resilience is the ability to recover and, in some cases, grow from stressful experiences. Resilience can also be seen as a process rather than a trait which may only be developed in the face of adversity. (Rutter, 2006).
When our healers suffer, we all suffer. When our healers thrive, we all thrive.
“We are trained to ignore our own emotions, thoughts, and needs and focus on the patient and their needs. [The fear is] if we focus on our needs we will provide worse care, and might even harm the patient. This is exactly the kind of thinking that leads to compassion fatigue, burn out [and undermines resilience]” - Jeanne Bereiter, MD (IHS, Trauma informed care, webinar series, 2017).
Sustainable self-care must be built on and return to an abiding acknowledgment of being truly human. When Health Care Workers readily realize the false demarcations between themselves and their patients, self-care becomes a human imperative (Wise, E. H., Hersh, M. A., & Gibson, C. M. 2012). We must learn to “walk the walk,” to care for ourselves with the same love, care and compassion we show our patients, this is how true and sustainable resilience is built.
Reach Out Today
The truth is, real self-care begins with remembering that you’re human, too. As a healthcare worker, you often blur the line between your own needs and the needs of your patients. But when you give yourself the same compassion and care that you so freely give to others, you create the foundation for lasting resilience.
At Moorestown Integrative Wellness, we believe that when you take time to care for yourself, you can continue your vital work with greater clarity and strength. In therapy, you’ll find a safe place to feel heard, understood, and supported, so you can keep showing up for others without losing yourself in the process.
Reach out today to get started with therapy for healthcare workers in Moorestown, NJ.