How to support your client’s stress, without becoming the therapist!

When we work across the legal sector, it’s common to come across clients who are under significant stress and need additional emotional support that isn’t necessarily within your legal skillset.

I’ve known a lot of legal professionals in my time who have often taken on the emotional impact of their client’s situations, which over time can lead to burn-out and frustration. This is especially true if you work within the family law or domestic violence contexts, but can span over most legal specialisations.

Here’s a few tips to help your clients without accidentally becoming a therapist yourself, some steps to follow to get your clients the most appropriate mental health support (including a link to a free resource you can provide your clients without taking on a therapeutic load yourself) and finally, some mental health tips for you as the legal professional.

How to help your clients:

While helping someone who’s distressed or emotionally flooded comes from a well-meaning place, simply saying “everything will be alright” or trying to highlight the bright side of a situation can often leave people feeling misunderstood or uncared for… the complete opposite of what you’re trying to achieve!

If you have a particularly distressed client it may be more helpful to say to them “I can see this is really hard for you and I empathise with what you’re going through right now,” and then provide them some options.

These options might include taking time for a small breather or a quick walk around the block so they can do some self-soothing, or you can provide them with referrals or resources for additional services (see below for a free resource).

If you give your clients a choice, it can help provide them with a sense of empowerment and gives you the time and space to do what you do best, without feeling guilty that you can’t do anything for them or leave you unsure as to how to help. It might also be useful to network with local counsellors or psychologists in your area, community mental health services or have the phone number close by for the mental health triage line in your state who can assist 24/7.

How to help yourself:

As a legal professional, you likely already work within a high-pressure and stressful system. Self-care is a MUST, especially when you’re also dealing with clients who might not be reacting logically or rationally.

While maintaining self-care can be tricky if you’re running between clients and court-rooms all day, or buried behind a mountain of paperwork, there are small things you can do to take care of you.

These can involve very simple breathing exercises; getting up and getting outside even if it’s just a simple walk around the block; or getting in any form of good “me time” outside of work.

My personal favourite (and stupidly simple) breathing exercise is simply doubling the count of your exhale over the count of the inhale, i.e., breathe in through the nose for 4 and exhale out through the nose for 8. The best part is, you can even do this in court-rooms or in meetings without anyone noticing too much!

Having a routine or ritual in the morning or throughout the day can also help you ground and re-centre you, and can be as simple as putting on some good music while you make your coffee, or putting your phone down for at least 5 minutes and simply being in the present moment, or using a diffuser in your office in the morning and using scent to help you set the tone for the day. Having a ritual you do at the end of the work day can also be helpful, to put some distance between your work and your home life, so you’re not taking stress home with you.

Here’s a summary of the things that might be helpful for both you and your client:

DO:

• Empathise with your client’s experience
• Provide your clients with a choice about their options
• Network with local mental health services (counsellors, psychologists, primary care services) to provide a list of possible referrals they can choose from.
• Give your distressed clients a few minutes to breathe or take a walk around the block if they’re significantly heightened.
• Make sure you’re looking after you too!
• Use simple breathing exercises to help relax and focus.
• Use rituals at the beginning or end of the day to help keep work and home separate.

DON’T:

• Make your client’s experience your own.
• Jump to looking at the bright side of the situation, it can leave your client feeling more misunderstood and isolated in their experience.
• Put yourself last. You need down-time too.

Also, Here’s a link to your FREE resource that you can print and provide to clients, filled with stress-reduction tips and tricks to use on the go and other additional resources.

Karyna Jansons is a registered counsellor specialising in anxiety, depression, stress, major life transitions and relationships (including Couple’s counselling). She also offers affordable and confidential EAP services to businesses, to support staff wellbeing. She uses a holistic framework to help clients navigate through all the seasons of their life. Karyna also has expertise in providing online counselling services to remote and regional locations, making her services accessible to a wider audience. You can find out more about her offerings here.