Mindful Soul Center for Wellbeing offers therapy for healthcare workers in New Jersey, now via telehealth in response to COVID-19.

There is a reason you sought out the healthcare profession. Maybe you are a natural helper, healer, or people-lover. You might have followed in the footsteps of other family members and proudly share a lineage of nurses or doctors. Or perhaps you are merely fascinated by the human body, biology, and science overall.

Regardless of what brought you to the healthcare profession, the global pandemic of COVID-19 has brought frightening new challenges to the lives of you and your fellow healthcare workers. You are managing many of the same stressors as the rest of our New Jersey community like homeschooling your children, wearing masks to the grocery store, and missing friends and family. However, healthcare workers are also dealing with an entirely different list of worries that is unique only to their profession.

Some of these extra worries include:

• Being at higher risk of infection
• Bringing the virus home to family members
• Having to isolate or even live separately from loved ones (and sometimes their own children)
• Lack of PPE (Personal Protection Equipment)
• Facing impossible ethical decisions about patient care
• Support or lack of support from healthcare administration
• Being thrown in the middle of political debates
• Longer hours and more demanding shifts
• The lives of their patients and also of their coworkers
• The families of their patients

Healthcare Workers are At Risk for PTSD

Healthcare workers and post-traumatic stress disorder is not exactly a new thing. Healthcare can be a highly stressful and often unpredictable work environment where workers are exposed to death, illness, violence, and any number of physically and emotionally volatile situations.

Let’s face it, being a healthcare worker right now means that there are significantly increased demands for your brain and nervous system to handle. As the stress from this experience builds, your system will respond in a number of ways to handle that stress. For many healthcare workers, symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder will begin to manifest.

Symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder include increased anxiety, sleep disturbances, irritability, difficulty concentrating, dissociation, intrusive memories or thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance (compartmentalizing one’s feelings and thoughts about what is happening), feeling numb or unable to experience positive emotions. Left untreated and with many healthcare workers remaining on the frontlines, this can quickly turn into a PTSD diagnosis.

It is important to understand that not everyone’s response will look the same and each person is processing their stress differently. This is also why people struggling with Acute Stress Disorder and PTSD can be overlooked, and sadly, why some cases result in suicide.

“an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” 

– Benjamin Franklin 

Mindful Soul has always treated a large number of healthcare workers here in our Audubon, Medford, and Collingswood offices. With specialty areas in both women’s mental health and trauma, this is a group of people that we are highly committed to supporting. Our services have expanded to telehealth to meet the needs of healthcare workers and our other clients safely and conveniently.

We know that healthcare workers often take care of themselves last. We also know that seeking treatment from a mental health professional for whatever symptoms you are experiencing can improve your coping skills, help keep your nervous system regulated, and either prevent or help you recover from PTSD.

Therapy For Healthcare Workers at Mindful Soul

Our highly trained therapists can help in a variety of ways!

• Individual and group therapy
• Coping Skills – CBT and DBT Skills can help improve your current coping mechanisms!
• Mind/Body Approaches – working with your breath and body to help regulate your nervous system, self-soothe, and stay grounded.
• EMDR Therapy – a gold standard therapy for treatment of trauma and PTSD.
• Healthcare Heroes – weekly virtual support group for Healthcare workers

Support for Healthcare Organizations & Hospitals

Mindful Soul therapists are also available to support healthcare organizations and hospitals in caring for the well-being of their staff! Please contact our Community Liason, Sarah Temel, for more information at sarah@mindfulsoulwellbeing.com.

• G-Tep Workshops: G-Tep is an EMDR Protocol that brings the power of EMDR to groups of all sizes. G-Tep Workshops, either online or in person, can support a group of people with a shared traumatic experience.
• Custom-tailored support groups or workshops for staff
• Educational sessions and coaching for administrators on the effects of trauma on their employees and ways to support their staff

Want to schedule an appointment with one of our therapists? Visit the Contact Us Page to schedule a call with our Client Care Coordinator to get started!