About

Interview with Jillian by the Arkansas Medical News (click)

Who Are We?

Healers in Balance is an organization created to identify and address the challenges faced by those in the helping professions, including areas of social work, counseling, psychiatry, care giving, environmental, educational, energy-based, clergy, and all those working in the medical field. Healers in Balance strives to help “Healers” become aware of and attend to their own needs, in order to provide the best care to those they help. Those lacking balance in self-care vs. care of others suffer from the malady “Forget Thyself”, which manifests in many ways, including physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual sicknesses, which the Healers themselves often fail to recognize as an imbalance. The unfortunate result is an overall loss of gifted, effective Healers as they push themselves to continue working, disconnect from their work, become unable to function, leave the profession, and even commit suicide.

How and Why it Developed

Healers in Balance was created in 2006 by Jillian Guthrie, LCSW in response to her own experience with Eating Disorder and Depression while working in the mental health field. She explains, “When I woke up and became aware, I was shocked and alarmed at the condition of those around me; I found myself surrounded by sickness in a place where we were all trying to help other people, but were struggling to function ourselves.” Jillian not only decided to address her own illness, but to pay attention to the process of healing; the interplay between her condition/experience and her work, and that of others in the profession. What she found was a strong, pervasive tendency toward illness in the Healers themselves.

At this time, many are unaware of the pervasive nature and severity of this malady, but the effects are profound and inarguable, as Healers try to help others while suffering their own emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual symptoms. Due to numerous now identified factors, their needs are forgotten or ignored, which can only result in maladaptive, unhealthy responses by the Healers themselves. This effects the whole profession, impacts client care, and teaches new Healers unhealthy habits, enabling the systems that tend to perpetuate this trend. It also contributes greatly to the “revolving door” of high turnover exhibited in many professions. As a result, no one benefits – clients, Healers, nor their agencies – from the imbalance.

Jillian is intentional in differentiating “Forget Thyself” from burnout, explaining it is a part of the why of this, a symptom of the larger issue. Unfortunately, burnout has become a “buzz word” for the now “acceptable” state and experience of those working in the helping professions. Jillian asserts this is not only unfortunate but unwarranted, dangerous, and preventable. The condition of Forget Thyself could be viewed as functioning in burnout mode, per se, until one’s body, mind, and/or spirit falters alarmingly from the overload and neglect or a crisis in the Healer’s life occurs and the Healer, who is Operating Without Reserves (a concept discussed in presentations), becomes unable to continue at his or her “usual” level.

As Jillian points out, “Client care then suffers right along with the self-concept, worth, and functioning level of the Healer. We, individually and as whole professions, must acknowledge and address the afflictions in our Healers.”

Who Are Healers?

In the interest of simplicity, and inclusion of all who might need the message, Jillian places all those in the helping and care giving professions under the heading of “Healer.” Thus Healers are: Those who feel they have a calling, a gift, or energy they offer to others in an effort to improve the overall human experience. As a Social Worker, Jillian has special insight into the mental health field, but having found a strong, unmistakable likeness in other helping professions, she utilizes extensive research as well as personal interviews with Healers in various disciplines, in her effort to address the potential for harm to all Healers. She has found that all are not only susceptible, but are at risk to this malady, due to numerous common themes in the helping professions and in the professionals themselves. These factors, as well as ways to address, prevent, and change the level of risk, are outlined and discussed in her presentations.

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Mission

Through attention to her own experience, interviews with other Healers, and research of the systems and environments in which they work, Jillian has discovered some reasons for this imbalance, the subsequent illness in Healers, and determined these must be addressed. The malady is named “Forget Thyself”, she explains “Many called to be Healers struggle with being human while trying to help others; self-needs are forgotten, resulting in physically, emotionally, spiritually ill healers.” The profound, telling response of a seasoned clinician as she responded, “This is what we don’t talk about” convinced Jillian she was on the right track, and responding as a Change Agent she outlined her Mission:

She does not profess to have all the answers. Jillian is continuously interviewing “Healers” in all professions, in order to gather information/experiences to increase understanding and develop pertinent, well-informed, effective responses to address these situations. She is able to formulate cohesive, research-based conclusions, and offer insight, illumination, and suggestions to Healers and to the organizations in which they practice. “I know, as intelligent, insightful people, that we can figure this out and find the courage and determination to change it.”

First Healer interview 2006 – shown with permission

Jillian states simply, “We show up in these professions to help, and it shouldn’t be this hard. It shouldn’t have this detrimental effect on the Healer. Something is disconnected. I do not believe we were ever intended to give ourselves away to help others; to give our lives away so others can enjoy theirs more.”