Navigating Identity-based burnout (with Shuktika Bose)

[00:00:05] Bronwyn: Hey, mental workers, you're listening to the Mental Work podcast, the podcast about working in mental health for early career mental health workers. As always, I'm your host, Bronwyn Milkins, and today we are talking about identity based burnout. If you've ever felt an unspoken pressure to represent your community, prove your worth, or navigate unwelcoming systems as a marginalized clinician, this episode is for you.

We are going to unpack what identity based burnout is, why it happens, and how early career mental health workers can start to recognize and respond to it with care and clarity. Here to help us out with this topic is our guest, Shuktika Bose. Hi, Shuktika.

[00:00:40] Shuktika: Hi. Hello.

[00:00:41] Bronwyn: It's so lovely to have you on the podcast and I'm really excited about this topic. I'm so glad that you suggested it.

[00:00:47] Shuktika: Thank you so much for having me on.

[00:00:49] Bronwyn: Could you please start off by telling listeners who you are?

[00:00:52] Shuktika: Yeah, well, I'm a clinical psychologist and mental health consultant. I'm based in Canberra currently, but I work all across Australia. Um, I've built up my company in a way that lets me do a lot of really cool things. So I do therapy and I do some training work and media work, and I do supervision as well. And I really love just this idea of making sense of mental health in a way that's practical and relatable and accessible to the community.

[00:01:19] Bronwyn: That's amazing. I love how you've built up your career. I think I need to ask you a bit more about it as we go along, but let's start out with the topic at hand, which is burnout and identity based burnout. How did you come to be interested in this area?

[00:01:31] Shuktika: I think like a lot of people, it started off with lived experience. Um, I was seeing burnout show up everywhere in clients, in colleagues, in myself as well, but it didn't always look like being overworked. Um, for some of us there was this extra layer, like carrying a pressure to prove ourselves or to constantly be translating who we are so that we fit into a specific type of box.

[00:01:59] Bronwyn: I'm wondering, with your experience during your clinical psychology training, was there an expectation that things might be different? Was there something that you were like, oh, maybe this won't happen in a clinical setting?

[00:02:11] Shuktika: It's really curious that you ask that because I don't think I thought that would be a problem for me in the clinical space. Honestly speaking, I was one of two people of color in my cohort, but even that being said, I thought that we would fit in because it's a beautiful clinical space with all of us psychologists who are in this to do the same thing. We're here to make a difference and benefit the community. So I didn't think it was gonna be an issue necessarily. So it's curious that it has shown up for me and I've shown up quite consistently.

[00:02:47] Bronwyn: Hmm. Could you tell us a bit more about maybe the emotional impact that those sorts of comments can have on you?

[00:02:53] Shuktika: I think that in the short term, it can be something that you can brush aside and just say, oh, it's just a simple comment. But when it's something that you have been facing throughout your life as a person of color or someone from a marginalized community, there will come a point where it wears you down. And in that wearing you down period, that's when you start disconnecting, and that's from a clinical space, I would say, that's when we can start to run into some problems, and that's where some of those burnout symptoms can kick in with the brain fog and the irritability. But one of the key things we know about burnout is that sense of disconnection or dissociation from what it is that you're doing and why you're doing it. So I think that's one thing that's really can be a long-term problem.

[00:03:43] Bronwyn: Yeah, because one of the things I'm interested in with this episode is the distinction, if any, between general workplace burnout, like what we know about those symptoms of exhaustion and even cynicism and maybe the difference between identity based burnout and, from what you were just describing then, it seems like that gradual wearing down might be a component.

[00:04:02] Shuktika: Yeah, absolutely. So when we talk about burnout, traditionally, we usually mean things like the long hours, too many clients, not enough support, and that's definitely a part of it. But identity-based burnout is more like the emotional exhaustion that comes from constantly navigating who you are in a space that doesn't quite make room for it.

So it's like, feeling the need to prove yourself or being the go-to for diversity staff or having to stay agreeable so you don't come across as difficult. Um, and sometimes it's really subtle, like, uh, not being invited to the pub or having to explain a cultural reference or being talked over in meetings, all of which I have experienced, and I know I'm not alone in having experienced that. And when that happens again and again, your nervous system just stays switched on and it's not, I'm tired from work, it's, I'm tired from being me at work.

[00:05:04] Bronwyn: It sounds like it can be really distressing or just unsettling, but continuously.

[00:05:09] Shuktika: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:05:11] Bronwyn: And you've painted a good picture there of what it could look like for early career clinicians, are there any other signs or symptoms that early career clinicians who are experiencing this identity-based burnout might face?

[00:05:22] Shuktika: It, it can feel like this quiet, constant weight, like you're walking into work already bracing for the next thing that's gonna happen. You might start your day with this feeling of not, again, a comment, a look, or something subtle. Then there's this internal tension of how do I respond to this in a way that's respectful to the people around me, but also to myself. And then there's this pressure to get it right, not just as a professional, but as a person of color or as someone from a marginalized group.

And one thing that I've really noticed is that. It can feel like if you make a mistake, you are not just representing yourself, you're representing a whole culture or a whole community, and have a think about the amount of weight that that then puts on every decision, every action, every interaction that you have. And even if nobody says anything overtly, there's this sort of low level emotional labor, the smiling, the softening, the editing of your voice just to be taken seriously.

If I may add one thing here, something that I've experienced personally and I know others have too, is people not knowing where I'm from. So I'm from Bangladesh, but people will usually ask me if I'm from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, sometimes somewhere in South America, they'll take a wild guess. And again, there's no malicious intent. It's not meant to be harmful, but it can leave you with this quiet sense of invisibility, like your culture doesn't exist in the reference point of the room. And you know, when those kind of moments happen over and over and over again, they really start to shape how safe you feel to show up as your whole full self.

[00:07:15] Bronwyn: There's been a push amongst psychology and healthcare more broadly to improve our cultural competence, our safety, and, I guess related concepts, and I just wondered how that impacts you. It's like, on the one hand, healthcare is trying to say we're inclusive and we are culturally competent and responsive and reflexive, on the other hand, we're hearing people like yourself describe these experiences, which as you say, they're not isolated. Like, does that, does that make things worse?

[00:07:46] Shuktika: Fascinating. Well, one thing that I would say is when workplaces are telling us that they're inclusive, it's so much more than Harmony Day cupcakes.

[00:07:57] Bronwyn: Yep.

[00:07:58] Shuktika: It's so much more than the token gestures. It's actually about examining who's being asked to do the emotional labor in the workplace, who's being included in the decision making, very, very fundamentally. And who's really safe to speak up because a consistent narrative that I'm hearing in workplaces, not just in the clinical setting but elsewhere, is that there might be diversity communities set up, but when it comes to the decision-making, the weight that is provided to those communities and the opinions that they have significantly less than is probably warranted for the number of people who are part of that diversity community. So that's just something to be aware of and it's a curious space to be in really.

[00:08:46] Bronwyn: Yeah, so you're pointing to emotional labor. I know another thing we talked about off air was this sort of people pleasing to be perceived as an agreeable team player. I'm wondering whether you could tell me more about that?

[00:08:57] Shuktika: Evolutionarily speaking, we have to be liked. If we are not liked, and if there is this sense that people will disagree with you or your opinion is not accepted, you run the risk of being ostracized. And from an evolutionary perspective, if you are ostracized, you will not survive.

So putting that into our contemporary society, the people pleasing concept runs so deep for those of us in marginalized communities because we are different from our very aesthetic, so we cannot hide from that. And from a young age, we have been told that we are different in the way that we dress, the way that we eat, the way that we speak. And so people pleasing. Then really means how can I try to blend myself in as much as possible, so I will not receive those sorts of comments because I just wanna be like the other kids who are wearing the Disney princess dresses. Why can't I be like that?

[00:10:06] Bronwyn: Totally. It makes me really want to, I'm like, what needs to change? And I'm just curious, have you found that there have been workplaces in your psychology career which have provided a sense of psychological safety where you don't have to do this emotional labor and this survival strategy is just to get by?

[00:10:24] Shuktika: Psychological safety is a really interesting concept, right? Because it's one of those things that we talk about all the time when it comes to our clients, but we don't always reflect on it in our own teams and in our, in our own selves. We know that psychological safety is that sense of feeling safe to speak up and asking for help and making a mistake without that fear of being judged or being punished.

And when it's there, and I have seen that in workplaces... Not necessarily in psychology based workplaces, but in workplaces. And when it's there, your nervous system can relax because you feel safe to make a mistake knowing that you are supported by your team, by management. Everybody's there, they have your back.

But when it's missing, especially for a marginalized clinician, it's double, triple fold worth of threat response that kicks in. That fear of, should I, should I say this? Will I be taken seriously? Is this, is this going to be held against me? That sort of second, third guessing yourself really then leads to a space where you don't show up fully as yourself.

And I think I'm seeing that more in some spaces and less in others, where you can hear the trickle down effect from management. When management is telling us, hey, I believe in inclusion and I'm showing it, and I want that to be seen by the rest of my team, those are the spaces where the team members are saying, okay, I feel safe to say I made a mistake and that I will be supported to do better next time, for example.

[00:12:09] Bronwyn: So it's really a whole of organization approach, this is what I'm hearing from you. And then also it needs to come from management so that it's important.

[00:12:17] Shuktika: Absolutely.

[00:12:19] Bronwyn: When we talk about marginalized groups, there is this tension between should we put more emotional labor on them and have them at the front of making... I guess, having input around what makes 'em psychologically safe or should we free them up from that emotional labor and make sure it comes from the top down?

[00:12:36] Shuktika: I absolutely love this question. I am part of a really beautiful community of girls, women of color, and this is a conversation we have had so regularly and we are from a wide variety of professions and it's such a consistent narrative of, insert holiday here... they want to do X, Y, Z, but they don't know how to. They've asked me for my input. For example, Ramadan and how they write the email about Ramadan.

They only really speak about the biggest types of holidays and fortunately that's fantastic from the perspective of inclusion of other religious groups, for example, Islam and Ramadan and- and Eid, and what a beautiful celebration that is. Unfortunately, that can then lead to other religious groups feeling like, hey, my religious festivals aren't being celebrated or recognized, and why is that? And then we have to ask the question, do we stand up and say, hi, I'll take over to make sure those parts of culture are being celebrated, and to what extent is it, I don't want to have to do that again.

And so there's that balance, as you were saying, of me taking on more or me taking on less, but someone else stepping in and saying, I'm learning and I'm gonna take this from you and run with it, and also can I consult you from time to time to make sure that I'm on the right track? So then it's not, I'm taking it from you, it's I'd love to ensure that there's collaboration in this space, that we're doing it correctly.

[00:14:21] Bronwyn: Yeah. It really sounds like from what you're describing, it's a partnership and that needs to be talked about and discussed openly and explicitly rather than assuming.

[00:14:30] Shuktika: Absolutely.

[00:14:31] Bronwyn: Yeah. That's a really nice way of putting it, because it is such a thing that we ask ourselves. We're like, how much should they be educating us? But then it's like, from what I'm hearing from you, it's like, ask them.

[00:14:41] Shuktika: Yeah, for sure.

[00:14:42] Bronwyn: Yeah.

So I'm interested in how we can apply this to individual clinicians. In psychology, we are trained to prioritize the client's needs. How can clinicians start setting boundaries that protect their own identities and energy?

[00:14:56] Shuktika: This is such a common challenge, especially really early on when you're still trying to prove yourself as a clinician and feeling that sense of respect for who you are in this space.

I'd like to share a personal experience, if that's okay. I actually spent the first five years of my career as a clinician bulk billing. I had no cancellation fees, no do not attend policies, and there were entire months where I was earning below the minimum wage. And my dad used to say how proud he was of me that I was giving back to the community, especially to people who couldn't afford therapy. And that meant so much to me culturally speaking, and from a familial background where we came from not very much to this country, and look at the opportunities that were afforded to us here.

But eventually I hit a wall, as I imagine many clinicians ultimately do where they realize that we actually just can't keep giving from a place that's draining and not getting enough back, and that's the thing with boundaries. They're not about being cold, or inflexible, that's one of the things we'd definitely be teaching our clients. They're actually about creating conditions that allow that nervous system to feel safe, to calm ourselves, to ground ourselves. And when we are consistently saying 'yes' to things, when we are taking on more, when we are avoiding confrontation, we are keeping ourselves in that low level of threat, of survival mode and boundaries.

In my opinion, help to interrupt that as a circuit breaker by saying, "hey, I matter too. I'm part of the equation, and so I have to look out for myself". So from my perspective, I believe that boundaries actually help us to reconnect with the type of clinician that we want to be. The one who decided in undergrad, I'm gonna be a psychologist, this is the type of clinician I want to be, the type of difference I want to make. And I imagine that every single one of us as clinicians did not imagine a life where we were exhausted, resentful, or checked out. That's not the vision we had for ourselves.

When it comes to protecting our identities and protecting our energy, that could be a money boundary, that could be a time boundary, which a lot of clinicians are doing now by setting specific boundaries for when they want to work. It could even be saying no to being the go-to diversity person because you just don't have capacity anymore. And whatever that is. It's not about distancing yourself from your values, it's about protecting them so that you remember why you got into this profession to begin with.

[00:18:04] Bronwyn: There's a really beautiful way of putting it. I was just wondering with your example, and thank you for sharing your story as well, in the example you talked about how your father was really proud of you and that was really important to you. I just wondered how our early clinicians can be supported through this process. 'Cause it sounds difficult. It's like on the one hand, yeah, you've got your culture in saying that, like family and this is valued, and on the other hand, you do have financial sustainability and your own values around that. Um, I just imagine it's a difficult process and I wondered how, if there, if there are any listeners who might be in the exact same situation, what you would say to them about how they can go through that process and feel supported.

[00:18:45] Shuktika: The best I can do is speak from experience, and I will say that I have had the privilege of being supervised by some incredible mentors who have helped me to remember my worth, remember why I'm doing it, reconnecting with what's important to me. And so for the clinicians out there who are listening to this conversation and are really resonating with this, I would say, one, you are not alone. And two, seek out a community of people who get it. And that might be the supervisors who are there to advocate for you and to advocate for your worth. And also friends, I would say, who you don't feel you have to be another form of identity around the ones who just get it. Those are the people that you wanna surround yourself with, that support network that can really remind you why you're in this profession.

[00:19:40] Bronwyn: And if our listeners are in a workplace where they feel like they're carrying this burden of identity-based burnout, are there any tips that you can give for them? How can workplaces be more supportive of, minoritized clinicians?

[00:19:54] Shuktika: So, as I said, supervisors play an incredibly important role here. So going along the understanding or assumption that a workplace has a supervisor in place, it's really worthwhile remembering that culturally responsive supervision is actually a part of our requirements as supervisors, it's not, it's not an optional extra. So that means supervisors should be able to understand how identity, culture, power dynamics can impact the work that we do.

And that said, if something doesn't feel right in that supervisory space, or if you feel like your experience just isn't being quite seen in that space, it's absolutely okay if it feels safe to name that to your supervisor. It's also okay to seek additional supervision for that. So I often encourage people to have more than one supervisor, even if it's different types of peer supervision. You might have a supervisor who's fantastic with a specific modality, and you might go to another supervisor who can help you with some of those identity and cultural based topics that you maybe necessarily wouldn't get elsewhere.

And so I think, as I said, from that workplace perspective, it's really so key that we're asking who is in the room when these decisions are being made about inclusion and diversity and the needs of the marginalized members within our workspace. And from that neuroscience perspective, the concept of co-regulation, which is being around people who make me feel safe, that sense of predictability can really help to create a workspace where people can relax into their role and we know the best clinicians are the ones who are relaxed and comfortable and feel confident to be able to create that space for their clients.

[00:21:52] Bronwyn: Yeah, that's a beautiful way of putting it. I like, I don't have anything to add because I'm like, oh, that's so clear and so succinct.

 Shuktika, this has been such a great conversation and a thread that we've had on the podcast for maybe the past few months has been around this topic of visibility. A lot of early career clinicians write into me and they say, I'm really afraid of speaking up and out. And something that you do in your career is you speak to the media a lot, and I just wondered whether you could share with us how you, I guess, decided to become visible and what that process was like for you.

[00:22:22] Shuktika: What a fascinating question to ask Bronwyn. I have been doing public speaking, I would say my whole life. I am terrified every single time I am in front of a camera or a microphone anywhere. And so I have been the type of person who faces the anxiety head on every single time. When it comes to speaking out, I've always been a relatively outspoken individual, much to my parents' dismay and, and I think debating really helped me to recognize my ability to formulate my arguments in a way that was structured and methodical and made sense.

When it came to speaking on the topics of mental health, when I decided that I would pursue mental health and psychology as a career, I come from a cultural background where mental health has for decades been considered a joke, and I think I really took it upon myself to say, that's not okay. I do not stand for that. I will not tolerate that because I have lived experience of enduring mental health struggles as so many of us, statistically speaking, most of us at some point in our life will have. And I really took it upon myself to say, we need to change this narrative. One of my most favorite quotes is, if you don't like what's being said, change the conversation. And I think that's really what I've tried to do throughout my life.

And when it comes to the media work that I do now, it's really part of that broader mission that I have of making mental health practical and accessible and human. And so every time I'm in front of a screen now in front of a camera and I'm asked questions about what are things that the Australian community can do to help with decision paralysis or help with their loneliness, I am so there to give people bite-sized tips to get them to realize that mental health isn't scary. It's also not hard. It takes the tiniest steps to move forward.

And so for every clinician who's feeling that fear of visibility. I think it's so important to know that you are not alone in this journey, there are so many of us out there who are terrified, and we are together. We're standing together. We're standing tall in this mission to make mental health seen.

[00:25:01] Bronwyn: So it sounds like it's deeply values based and it's also something bigger than yourself. You are like, I have a mission here. I've come from personal lived experience, and I've also come from observing my clients, society, and you really wanna make a difference here, and that sounds like it rises above any fears or insecurities. Not that you don't have them or you don't feel them, but you've got this broader mission.

[00:25:23] Shuktika: Absolutely.

[00:25:24] Bronwyn: Something else we get from listeners who write in is they are like, but I'm afraid of being criticized. Is this something that you have? Particularly for psychologists, sometimes we can even have lateral comments from other psychologists who are like, I don't think you should be doing what you're doing. Um, how might you cope with fears or concerns around that?

[00:25:41] Shuktika: You know that saying, feel the fear and do it anyway? It's a great saying. Easier said than done though in many instances. There's another interesting quote, which is, nothing changes, if nothing changes. And the fear of criticism, shouldn't be the reason you don't do something. The people who are criticizing, get curious. Why is it that they've provided you with that piece of criticism? Is it constructive? Is it coming from a space of insecurity on their part? Is it criticism? Is it feedback? What can you do with that information?

Brene Brown, and I'm going to butcher the quote, said that if you are not in the arena, I don't want to hear what you have to say. And so someone, right? So someone who's on the sidelines who doesn't engage in advocacy that's trying to tell you how to do things, thank you so much for your feedback, join me here and tell me what it's like. And if they can't do that, appreciate it, move on.

[00:26:58] Bronwyn: It's really beautiful and I'm so glad that you're able to share that with us because, yeah, I think a lot of early career clinicians, they do have this fear and they're like, no, I need 20 years knowledge down the track to be able to speak out. But from what I'm hearing from you, look, we can talk to the media about how to help people with uncertainty, how to help people with these common dilemmas and topics that they face day to day. We don't need 20 years under our belt to give these strategies, which we are well trained and qualified for.

[00:27:23] Shuktika: Absolutely.

[00:27:24] Bronwyn: I love what you're doing. Um, and I wonder if we could just bring that back. I know you mentioned a bit of the cultural dimension as well, but is there anything in addition or different that you might say to listeners who are from a culturally or racialized background and they wanna be more visible? Is there anything that they need to consider or, or you would recommend?

[00:27:42] Shuktika: If it feels safe to do so, I would say three words, lean into it. Because your voice is unique as a member of a marginalized community. And that voice is worthy of being heard. So if it feels safe to do so, and if it doesn't seek supervision, see a psychologist about that, seek your own support... we need to hear your story because nothing changes if nothing changes. We need those stories in order to change the conversation long-term about mental health, mental health literacy, mental health advocacy to support the entire Australian and dare I say it, global community.

[00:28:33] Bronwyn: Beautiful. Shuktika, it has been such a pleasure to have you on today, and I'm so grateful for the insights that you've shared with, with me and my listeners. I've truly learned from this conversation, so thank you. What do you hope that listeners will take most of all from our conversation today?

[00:28:46] Shuktika: If anything in this conversation landed with you, even quietly or a little bit, I hope that you know that you're not alone. Identity based burnout is so real and it is so valid, and if you are feeling it, that doesn't mean you're not resilient or that you're not cut out for this type of work, it means that your nervous system and your entire system has been doing a lot of heavy lifting for a long time. We talk about compassion for our clients all the time, and I think I would love for this to be an invitation to take a page out of that book and give some of that back to ourselves.

We also deserve to be in a team where our voice is heard and what, when clinicians feel safe to show up fully, the whole system, the whole community thrives as a result. So I hope you know you're not alone. Your voice deserves to be heard. Please don't shrink yourself. You are allowed to take up space here.

[00:29:56] Bronwyn: Beautiful. And if listeners wanna learn more about you, get in touch, where can they find you?

[00:30:01] Shuktika: Yeah, so I am on Instagram at Shuktika Bose and I'm on LinkedIn as well. And you can find me on Facebook. You might find me walking the streets if you do, say hello.

[00:30:14] Bronwyn: Well Shuktika, thank you again. It's been so lovely to speak with you.

Listeners, if you found this episode helpful, please do put it in somebody else's ears. It's the best way to get the podcast out there. You can also leave a rating or review and I hope you enjoyed it. That's a wrap. Thanks for listening to Mental Work. I'm Bronwyn Milkins. Have a good one, and catch you next time. Bye.