Creating safe spaces for Asian Australian mental health practitioners.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been a lot of concern around how mental health services can meet the rising demand for support.

We’ve all heard about the under-supply of psychologists in this time. We’ve also heard about burnout, compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and practitioners closing their books.

When it comes to support for mental health practitioners themselves, the resources can seem limited too!

As a psychologist that has been seeing clients via Telehealth over the past couple years, I’ve come to a few realisations around this too.

1. Supervision is a crucial ingredient in my sustainability as a psychologist. 

I definitely told myself that working from home was good for a massive introvert like myself. However, I couldn’t help but notice some discomfort over time, and whenever I had a supervision session (with my peers or my supervisor), I would feel a huge sigh of relief and weight immediately lifted from my body.

This pattern repeated for a little while before I realised how effective it was to have a place to talk openly and honestly about my clinical experiences. Supervision served different purposes and gave me different things: encouragement, emotional support or practical guidance. Whatever it was, I loved having a designated space to talk through niggling thoughts on my mind.

I now take this very seriously when considering the sustainability of my work. If I want to be in the work of supporting others in the long-term, I really need to have established support systems for myself!

2. We need more genuinely safe spaces for culturally diverse practitioners.

To highlight this point, our mental health social worker Mallika has shared some of her personal experiences with supervision:

As a South Asian social worker, you tend to be part of the minority in many work spaces in the mental health sector. Whenever I start a new job, I tend to do a scan of the workforce to see how many people of colour I can see - it's usually just a handful, and never more than one other person in my team. In theory, it shouldn't matter - our job is to work together using our 'expertise' to support our clients. But why does my mind automatically do that scan?

I believe this is about finding people who could have my back. It’s one less person that I need to put on my ‘mask’ to talk to. Having one other person with a similar cultural background who understands the workplace dynamics, was so helpful for debriefing all those racist comments or racial microaggressions.

Once in a team meeting, a colleague made a blatantly racist comment. My rage immediately set in. I scanned the room and noticed that no one else seemed to have registered it, or even paused to question the comment.

After the meeting, I mustered up the courage to have an honest talk with my supervisor. As a hot angry tear streamed down my face, I shared my anger and frustration about the situation.

I was then met with the question, 'What would you like to do?'.

I was shocked - wasn’t that their job?

Wasn't it my supervisor's job to assess the situation, provide support and space for reflection, and offer some suggestions to navigate this?

Instead, the mental load and accountability was pushed back on me, the ‘instigator’, to work through my feelings and come up with the solutions myself.

At the end of the meeting, I was still stunned and didn’t have any new ideas for a resolution so we decided to leave it for the time being. I soon noticed that this became a bit of a theme across the workplace – as someone who has raised an issue once, I quickly became known as the advocate for culturally responsive support. All responsibility was placed on me, to wave the flag, represent and hold the cultural portfolio without any real or formal discussion.

Over the last year, I have started connecting more and more with other mental health clinicians who are a part of the Asian diaspora. It has been eye opening to share my experiences and be met with 'Wow that happened to me too, and this is what I found helpful' - instead of 'What would you like to do?'.

This is why I find peer support to be incredibly powerful - it strips away any power structures, and in a sector that is largely white, it offers a space to not feel like a minority.

3. Social connection is a powerful recharging tool for practitioners.

As mental health practitioners, we may find ourselves working in a whole range of settings. It can be isolating and lonely at times, so at Shapes and Sounds, we offer a warm and inviting space to come ‘home’ to.

This is why we’ve launched our Peer Supervision series! It's a regular zoom meeting to connect with other Asian Australian mental health practitioners. You’ll be invited to share reflection, provide support and learn with others.

We want to share and hear from you!

Our next session runs on Thursday March 24th at 7.30pm AEDT, so be sure to register soon! Find more info HERE.