A Case Study Exploration into the Benefits of Teaching Self-Care to School Psychology Graduate Students

Abstract

It has long been established that school psychology practitioners experience high levels of burnout. As a means of preventing burnout among future practitioners, school psychology training programs are frequently encouraged to teach and model self-care to students. This is particularly important as the current generation of graduate students experience high levels of anxiety and depression, but there have been very few examples in the research literature of how training programs should teach self-care and whether it is actually effective. The current study presents results from an exploratory case study, which integrated self-care instruction into graduate school psychology curriculum with a small sample (N = 22) of first-year school psychology students across two separate cohorts. Students created written plans with self-care strategies that they attempted to implement over the course of their first semester in graduate school. A qualitative review of their plans and written reflections revealed that students described many sources of stress upon entry into training, and most needed to revise their strategies for coping as stresses changed during the semester. Overall, student reflections revealed that the self-care activities were helpful to meet the demands of their graduate education.

Self-Care of Canadian School Psychology Graduate Students

“…Recent literature by Daly and Gardner (2022) explored the benefits of teaching self-care to school psychology graduates with a small sample ( N = 22) and found that students’ reflections of self-care activities assisted in meeting the demands associated with their graduate training. However, the authors recommend further examination of this finding with a larger sample size.…”

“…It is particularly important to address school psychologists’ self-care as research (Huebner, 1993; Newman, 2013) has indicated that school psychologists, in comparison to clinical, and counseling psychologists, are more susceptible to burnout, due to higher levels of emotional exhaustion (i.e., feeling overwhelmed by job demands), depersonalization (i.e., developing negative attitudes toward clients), decreased levels of personal accomplishment (i.e., feeling incompetent and ill-equipped to support clients), lack of experience, and increased interpersonal relationships (Badali & Habra, 2003; Daly & Gardner, 2022). These findings could be attributed to the vast array of challenges and expectations school psychologists are faced with daily (Fagan & Wise, 2000).…”

“…Physical self-care, the most widely researched practice (Williams-Nickelson, 2006) can be defined as one’s involvement in activities that help promote physical health. These include but are not limited to; exercise (Brown, 1991; Fleshner, 2005), massage, adequate sleep hygiene (Beccuti & Pannain, 2011), the maintenance of a healthy diet, taking internet, or video game breaks, taking “brain breaks” (e.g., drawing), maintaining realistic academic expectations, maintaining friendships, and relationships, partaking in gratitude activities, listening to music, scheduling breaks, and celebrating accomplishments (Daly & Gardner, 2022). Emotional self-care is defined as one’s ability to self-reflect and monitor their emotional state, which can often include positive self-regard, seeking personal therapy, and utilizing self-talk strategies (Gross, 2007).…”

“…Beyond these challenges, school psychologists must uphold ethical and legal standards outlined in multiple regulatory bodies. Consequently, school psychologists may feel higher levels of emotional exhaustion (e.g., feeling overwhelmed by job demands), depersonalization (e.g., developing negative attitudes toward clients), decreased levels of personal accomplishment (e.g., feeling incompetent and ill-equipped to support clients), and lack of experience (Badali & Habra, 2003; Daly & Gardner, 2022), negatively affecting their well-being. Subsequently, higher rates of mental health disorders are reported by school psychologists than by others in the healthcare profession (Acker, 2012; Rossi et al, 2012).…”