Mental health professionals with mental illnesses: A qualitative interview study

The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of mental health professionals who self-identify as having a mental illness by analyzing how they describe their experiences in their own words. Twelve therapists volunteered to be interviewed for a larger study of working professionals living with mental illness that focused on perceived prejudice and discrimination in the workplace, revealing versus concealing one's mental illness on the job, and how having a mental illness impacts one's identity as a professional. This article reports on how these themes relate to practicing psychotherapists who are typically careful about with whom they share their mental health information. The results highlight that expressions of prejudice toward people with mental illnesses were commonplace among these mental health professionals and may contribute to an inclination among therapists to reveal their mental health history selectively, if at all, on the job. When it comes to sharing with clients, therapists tended to be thoughtful and deliberate about self-disclosure, only using it when they believed it would be beneficial to the client rather than to themselves. Regardless of whether they shared with clients, most of the therapists emphasized that having direct experience with mental illness enhanced their capacity to empathize with their clients, although sometimes empathy could trigger their own symptoms. The implications of these results for psychotherapists are discussed, including how psychotherapists with mental illness should care for themselves and how psychotherapists without mental illness can be more sensitive to their colleagues. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).