The Unexpected Burden of Being a Therapist on Social Media
Scrolling through Instagram, you've probably encountered posts from therapists sharing mental health tips, relationship advice, or insights about anxiety and depression. These qualified psychologists have built followings by making psychological knowledge more accessible to everyday people. But new research reveals that behind these helpful posts lies a world of stress, ethical dilemmas, and unexpected challenges that most followers never see.
The Double Life Dilemma
Therapists who become social media influencers find themselves living in two worlds that don't always align comfortably. In their professional practice, they maintain strict boundaries with clients, carefully managing what they share about themselves. Online, however, they feel pressure to be authentic and relatable, often sharing personal struggles to connect with their audience.
This creates a constant balancing act. How much personal information is too much? What happens when current or former clients see posts about their therapist's own mental health challenges? These questions weigh heavily on professionals who never received training for this type of public presence.
The situation becomes even more complicated when followers treat these therapists as their personal counsellors. Many report receiving hundreds of messages each week from people sharing traumatic experiences or expressing suicidal thoughts. While their training makes them want to help, they know they cannot provide therapy through social media, leaving them feeling helpless and emotionally drained.
The Mental Health Crisis Within Mental Health Professionals
Perhaps the most striking finding from the research is how much these online activities affect the therapists themselves. Many report significant anxiety, sleep problems, and burnout specifically related to managing their social media presence. The constant pressure to create content while maintaining their regular clinical work essentially becomes a demanding second job.
Negative comments hit particularly hard. Some therapists report losing sleep over criticism of their posts, while others face professional backlash from colleagues who view social media work as inappropriate. The fear of being reported to licensing boards creates ongoing stress about every piece of content they share.
Social media algorithms add another layer of pressure. To stay visible, therapists feel forced to create increasingly engaging content, often including videos or personal moments that make them uncomfortable. The platform essentially demands a level of performance that conflicts with their professional training and personal comfort zones.
Professional Isolation and Judgment
The psychology community itself often views social media work with suspicion. Many therapists described feeling judged by colleagues who see online influence as a departure from traditional practice. This professional criticism creates isolation precisely when these practitioners need support navigating new ethical territories.
The business aspect of social media compounds this tension. Therapists struggle with the need to market their services while maintaining their professional ethics. The line between education and advertisement becomes blurry, especially when working with vulnerable populations who may be financially struggling.
The Simplification Trap
Instagram's format forces complex psychological concepts into digestible posts, but this creates its own problems. Therapists worry that their simplified content might lead to self diagnosis or unrealistic expectations about mental health treatment. The platform's constraints mean that nuanced discussions about mental health get reduced to graphics and brief videos.
This oversimplification can backfire, making people feel invalidated when their experiences don't match the neat categories presented in social media posts. Therapists find themselves caught between wanting to help and fearing they might cause harm through incomplete information.
Competing Motivations
The research uncovered conflicting motivations driving therapists to social media. Many genuinely want to increase access to mental health information, especially given long waiting lists for traditional therapy services. They see their platforms as ways to provide immediate help while people wait for formal treatment.
However, these altruistic goals often clash with business realities. Even therapists primarily focused on social justice find that their educational content attracts potential private practice clients. This creates ethical tensions about profiting from what they intended as public service.
Finding Support in Unexpected Places
Despite the challenges, many therapists discover valuable community among other mental health influencers. These informal networks provide peer support that traditional supervision often cannot offer, since many supervisors lack experience with online professional presence.
This community becomes crucial for navigating ethical dilemmas and professional isolation. The connections formed with other social media therapists often compensate for the lack of understanding from traditional professional circles.
The Guidance Gap
Current professional guidelines for therapists focus primarily on personal social media use, leaving those with a professional online presence without clear direction. The unique challenges of influencer work require different considerations from traditional therapy practice, but professional bodies have been slow to provide specific guidance.
The research suggests several needs: specialized supervision for social media work, clearer boundary requirements, and specific guidance on combining therapeutic ethics with business marketing. Professional organizations need to better understand the pressures facing therapists in online spaces.
As mental health awareness grows and social media evolves, more psychologists will likely explore online influence as a way to reach wider audiences. The current research suggests this transition requires careful consideration of both benefits and costs.
Most therapists interviewed felt the positive aspects outweighed the negatives, but their experiences highlight the need for better support systems and clearer professional guidelines. Without these supports, the mental health field risks losing valuable professionals to burnout or seeing a decline in the quality of online mental health content.
The findings indicate that with proper guidance, supervision, and boundary setting, therapists can effectively use social media to extend their impact. However, the current landscape leaves many navigating complex ethical territories alone, potentially compromising both their well being and the quality of information reaching the public.
This research highlights important questions about how traditional therapeutic professions adapt to digital spaces while maintaining their core values and protecting both practitioners and the communities they serve. As this trend continues to grow, addressing these challenges becomes increasingly important for the future of mental health care.
White, E., & Hanley, T. (2025). “What I share is not the same as therapy”: Psychologist experiences of Instagram use as a mental health influencer. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice.
The Double-Edged Nature of Empathy in Psychology
When we think about what makes a good therapist or counsellor, empathy often tops the list. The ability to understand and share the feelings of others seems like an obvious requirement for anyone in the helping professions. However, new research reveals that the relationship between empathy and professional effectiveness in psychology is far more complex than we might expect.
Understanding Empathy's Many Faces
Researchers have identified different types of empathy that work in distinct ways. Cognitive empathy involves understanding what others are thinking and feeling, while affective empathy means experiencing those emotions yourself. There's also empathic care, which focuses on taking action to help others in distress.
These different forms of empathy don't always work together harmoniously. While cognitive empathy might help a therapist understand their client's perspective, affective empathy could cause them to absorb their client's pain in ways that become personally overwhelming.
The Communication Benefits
Studies show that empathy does play a valuable role in therapeutic relationships. When researchers observed counselling sessions, they found that therapists with higher empathy scores demonstrated more effective communication behaviours. These included maintaining appropriate eye contact, using open body language, asking thoughtful questions, and showing genuine understanding through their responses.
Clients consistently rated these empathetic therapists more positively, and sessions tended to last longer, suggesting deeper engagement. The empathetic therapists also appeared more confident and relaxed during sessions, which likely contributed to creating a safe therapeutic environment.
The Hidden Costs
However, the research also uncovered a concerning pattern. Among teachers and counsellors who worked extensively with people, those with more experience showed increasing levels of mental health problems. Depression, anxiety, obsessive behaviours, and physical symptoms all became more common as professionals spent more years in people-focused roles.
The connection appears to be related to empathy itself. When you regularly absorb the emotional pain of others, it takes a toll on your own psychological well being. The very quality that makes someone effective at helping others can become a source of personal suffering.
The Brain Science Behind Empathy
From a neurological perspective, empathy activates specific brain networks associated with pain and emotional processing. When we witness someone else's suffering, our brains simulate aspects of their experience. This neural mirroring helps us understand others, but also means we genuinely feel echoes of their distress.
Research shows that people with higher empathy levels tend toward prosocial behaviours, helping others and contributing positively to society. Conversely, those with lower empathy may display more antisocial tendencies. This suggests empathy serves important evolutionary and social functions.
Rethinking Professional Requirements
The findings challenge the assumption that high empathy automatically equals better therapeutic outcomes. While empathy remains important for building rapport and understanding clients, it may not be the most crucial factor in determining professional competence.
Other qualities like education, experience, critical thinking skills, and the ability to maintain professional boundaries might be equally or more important. A therapist who can understand their client's perspective without becoming emotionally overwhelmed may be more effective in the long run.
The Self-Assessment Problem
Interestingly, the research found that people's self-reported empathy levels didn't correlate well with how empathetic others perceived them to be. This suggests that simply asking therapists about their empathy isn't a reliable way to assess this quality. Professional evaluation requires more objective measures of empathetic behaviour in actual therapeutic interactions.
Finding Balance
Rather than viewing empathy as purely positive or negative, the research suggests we need a more nuanced understanding. Moderate levels of empathy, combined with strong professional training and self-care practices, may represent the optimal approach for mental health professionals.
This might involve developing what researchers call "empathic care," learning to understand and respond appropriately to client needs without becoming emotionally consumed by their problems. It's about being professionally caring rather than personally affected.
Implications for Training
These findings have important implications for how we train future therapists and counsellors. Programs might need to focus more on teaching emotional regulation skills alongside empathy development. Learning to recognize and manage the emotional impact of client work could be just as important as learning to connect with clients.
The research also suggests that ongoing support and mental health monitoring for practicing therapists should be standard practice, not an afterthought. Regular check-ins and preventive mental health care could help professionals maintain their effectiveness while protecting their well being.
Moving Forward
This research doesn't diminish the importance of empathy in therapeutic relationships. Instead, it highlights the need for a more sophisticated understanding of how empathy works and what its limits might be. Effective therapy likely requires a combination of empathetic understanding, professional skill, and emotional resilience.
As our understanding of empathy continues to evolve, we may develop better ways to harness its benefits while minimizing its potential costs. This could lead to more effective therapeutic approaches and healthier, more sustainable careers for mental health professionals.
The goal isn't to eliminate empathy from therapy but to understand it better so we can use it more wisely. After all, helping others effectively requires taking care of ourselves too.
Bor, R., & Palmer, S. (2008). The practitioner's handbook: a guide for counsellors, psychotherapists and counselling psychologists.
The Evolution of Counselling Psychology: From Recognition to Relevance
Counselling psychology has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a special interest group to becoming a recognized professional discipline. This journey reveals much about how mental health professions evolve and adapt to changing societal needs.
Finding a Professional Home
In the early days, counselling psychology brought together practitioners from diverse backgrounds who shared common values. Many came from other areas of psychology or had worked as counsellors, drawn by the field's emphasis on humanistic principles and respect for personal, subjective experiences. Unlike other branches of psychology that focused primarily on diagnosis and treatment, counselling psychology prioritized the individual's own understanding of their experiences.
The path to professional recognition wasn't smooth. When practitioners first sought divisional status within the British Psychological Society, they faced rejection. Critics argued there wasn't a clearly defined area of practice that merited such recognition. The compromise was the creation of a "Special Group," which served as a stepping stone toward full professional status.
Core Values and Unique Approaches
What set counselling psychology apart was its commitment to several key principles. The field embraced reflective practice, viewing self awareness as essential for effective work with clients. Personal development and ongoing supervision weren't just training requirements but career long commitments. This was unusual in psychology, where supervision was typically reserved for trainees.
The profession also championed the scientist practitioner model, but interpreted it more broadly than other psychological disciplines. Rather than viewing science and practice as separate domains, counselling psychologists sought to integrate research, reflection, and therapeutic work in ways that honoured both scientific rigour and human complexity.
Balancing Science and Humanity
One of the ongoing challenges for counselling psychology has been reconciling its humanistic values with demands for scientific evidence. The field has always maintained that effective practice requires understanding people as whole beings, not just collections of symptoms or behaviours. This perspective sometimes conflicted with more medical approaches that emphasized diagnosis and standardized treatments.
The scientist practitioner debate within counselling psychology reflects broader questions about what it means to be scientific in human services. Some argue for strict experimental methods and statistical evidence, while others advocate for a more flexible approach that includes qualitative research, case studies, and practice based evidence. This tension continues to shape how the profession defines itself and its methods.
Professional Development as Lifelong Learning
Counselling psychology has pioneered approaches to professional development that go beyond traditional training models. The field recognizes that competence isn't achieved once and maintained forever, but requires ongoing attention to personal and professional growth.
Supervision in counselling psychology extends throughout careers, not just during training. This reflects the profession's understanding that working with human distress and growth requires practitioners to continuously examine their own responses, biases, and capabilities. The supervisory relationship becomes a space for reflection, learning, and professional refinement.
The field has also embraced diverse approaches to continuing professional development, recognizing that learning happens in many contexts and forms. This includes traditional workshops and conferences, but also peer consultation, personal therapy, and systematic reflection on practice.
Contemporary Challenges
Today, counselling psychology faces several significant challenges. The push toward evidence based practice creates tension with the field's emphasis on individualized, relationship focused work. While practitioners support the use of research to inform practice, they worry about overly rigid applications of research findings that ignore individual differences and contexts.
The profession also operates in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Alternative providers, from life coaches to wellness consultants, offer services that may appear similar to what counselling psychologists provide. This raises questions about what unique value the profession offers and how to communicate that value to potential clients and employers.
Globalization and technological change are reshaping how psychological services are delivered and consumed. Counselling psychologists must adapt to new service delivery models while maintaining their core commitments to relationship, reflection, and individualized care.
The future of counselling psychology will likely depend on its ability to maintain its distinctive values while demonstrating clear benefits to those it serves. The profession's emphasis on the therapeutic relationship, personal development, and reflective practice may become increasingly valuable in a world that often prioritizes quick fixes and standardized solutions.
The field's commitment to understanding people in context, respecting diversity, and honoring subjective experience positions it well to address contemporary mental health challenges. As society becomes more aware of the complexity of human wellbeing, counselling psychology's holistic approach may prove particularly relevant.
The profession's evolution from a small interest group to a recognized discipline demonstrates the power of shared values and persistent effort. Its future success will depend on continuing to articulate and demonstrate the unique contributions it makes to understanding and supporting human flourishing.
A Continuing Journey
Counselling psychology's story is far from complete. The field continues to evolve, responding to new research, changing social contexts, and emerging needs. Its commitment to combining scientific inquiry with deep respect for human experience ensures that this evolution will be both thoughtful and responsive to those it serves.
The profession's journey reflects broader themes in how helping professions develop and maintain their identity in changing times. By staying true to core values while adapting to new circumstances, counselling psychology offers lessons for other fields navigating similar challenges.
Lane, D. A., & Corrie, S. (2006). Counselling psychology: Its influences and future. Counselling Psychology Review-British Psychological Society, 21(1), 12.
