Discussion Group: Therapist Struggling Post-Natural Disaster – April 14, 2025

What is it?
Periodically, PVEI's founder, Dr. Rebecca Bailey, hosts a 75 minute virtual zoom, following each free session of Dr. Bailey's Banter. In these interactive follow-up discussion groups, participants are led deeper in the topic by Dr. Bailey and interact with each other. To keep engagement high, space is very limited.

Session Topic:
Dear Therapist struggling post-natural disaster,

You may be sitting here right now, trying to figure out how to hold it together. Your home is gone. Your community is scattered. Your practice - that space you created with such care, where so many healing conversations happened - might be destroyed. And amid this chaos, you're probably still thinking about your clients.

This isn't like the crises you help others through. This time, you're not sitting in your comfortable office chair, holding space for someone else's pain. You're in the middle of it.

Your training, your knowledge about trauma and resilience - it might feel more like a burden than a blessing right now. Every anxiety spike, every moment of numbness, every surge of grief - you're analyzing it, aren't you? Labeling each response like it's something to manage rather than feel.

We know you have impossible expectations. The weight of being "the strong one", "the helper", and "the one who should know how to handle this" is suffocating. Your colleagues are checking on you, and you're probably automatically shifting into therapist mode, assuring them you're "managing" or "taking it day by day". Those practiced phrases we use with clients feel hollow when they relate to our pain.

Your professional identity has been shaken. Maybe you feel shame about needing help or about not being able to maintain clean clinical boundaries when you're standing in the same relief line as your clients. Perhaps you're struggling with seeing yourself as a helper, a competent professional, or an overwhelmed survivor. This duality is exhausting, and it's okay to admit that.

Whether you have experienced a fire, flood, tornado, or any other personal, natural disaster, join Dr. Bailey as she unpacks ways that therapists can help themselves, after dealing with personal loss.

Session Schedule:
April 14th, 2025 @ 3:00 pm – 4:15 am Pacific Standard Time

Cost:
$65 USD (PVEI Member Price: $35.75)

Pre-requisite:
None. Anyone is invited to attend.