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Aim or purpose

We aimed to explore the stress levels experienced by NHS professionals who worked throughout the pandemic to ascertain the impact this had on their current/long term mental health. Our purpose is to inform counselling practitioners of our findings.Ìý

Design and methodolgy

Following Íø±¬ÃÅ guidelines for research in counselling/psychotherapy (Mitchels, 2018), four NHS workers self-selected to be our respondents. Participants were audio-recorded during semi-structured interviews.Ìý

Results and findings

It appears respondents’ have experienced significant negative impact on their mental health since the onset of the pandemic. Fear/anger was expressed at being exposed to a deadly virus and profound concern for personal safety was high; Participants also disclosed being overwhelmed by patient death rates, their own levels of uncertainty around effective medical procedures and feelings of being unappreciated/taken for granted at work; which led to increased emotional/physical exhaustion. Our participants were affronted by the weekly public display of appreciation; experiencing this as another example of inappropriate support. However, concerns were expressed around accepting the minimal/inappropriate support (as it was experienced). These concerns specifically included fear of losing control/being misunderstood; instead respondents appeared to prefer reliance on peer support/mindfulness.Ìý
All participants disclosed concern for the long-term impact on their mental health.

Research limitations

The relatively small respondent group may limit generalisation of our findings (McLeod, 2003) and as our analysis was based on phenomenological principles findings may be considered subjective. ​

Conclusions and implications

As our respondents appeared to prefer reliance on peer-support, there is strong indication here suggesting a counsellors’ lack of shared lived experience might be a barrier to effective therapy. It is also possible that offering talking-therapy, during this on-going traumatic experience for NHS professionals, might be currently inappropriate as our respondents feared the loss of control that it seems they deem necessary to maintain effectiveness in their work.