3 Early Signs of Codependency

Hey, everyone, it's Chris. And today I wanted to talk about a slightly different topic that doesn't come up very much, and that is whether you're dependent on your patients, whether you're exhibiting signs of codependency as a clinician. And for those of you whose immediate reaction is, no, that's not me, I wouldn't do that, I'll challenge you just to stay with me for a couple of minutes, because often that immediate reaction can be masking something that's going on underneath. So if that's not you, great. But it's a really important thing to look for, because I know for myself, I thought I got over these things a lot earlier than I actually had. When I did a little bit more work, I realized there were still things hanging in there. So when we talk about this, you know, dependency comes up a lot when it turns to patient dependency. So are patients becoming dependent on our care, dependent on coming to see us? Are they becoming more passive? And we know that that's worse for their outcomes. Some patients will be, and it's okay to accept that, but we certainly don't want to encourage it. But when it comes to clinician dependency, that's something that isn't talked about very much. But it can be equally harmful for our patients and in fact, more harmful for us in the long term. It can lead to things like frustration, getting jaded, and even burnout. So it's really important to look for that. And I wanted to share three signs with you today that you might be exhibiting some sort of dependency with your patients. The first one is that you take your patients home with you. That mentally and emotionally, you spend the day treating patients, then you go home and you find you're still thinking about them, you're still worrying about them, they're kind of going through. Especially if you're laying in bed at night and you're still mulling over cases in your head, that's a sign that you may be becoming a little bit codependent. And for those of you who are new graduates out there, you probably have this, and this is normal. So don't freak out. This doesn't mean anything's wrong, but it is something that you do want to work on. So if you're taking patients home with you, it likely means you're a bit too emotionally invested in their care, and that's actually going to impact your ability to be the kind of clinician they need. The second one is that you really worry when they don't come back, and you assume it's that you did something wrong. So, you know, you see a patient for a visit or two and they don't come in and you find yourself instantly feeling quite negative, quite emotionally stressed, you know, what did I do? What went wrong? And your mind kind of goes to those fearful places about maybe they were unhappy, maybe they didn't like what I did, maybe they think it made them worse. So that's another sign that, you know, you find you're thinking about patients when they don't come back. Now that doesn't mean you don't get curious and it doesn't mean that you don't track patients and when they don't come back, you don't find out why. But often if you're worried about that too much, not only does it is it a sign that you're maybe a bit too, too invested, but also it's going to make it harder to actually reach out to them and see. Because if you're worried about all those worst case scenarios, it's harder to actually pick up the phone and check in on them without it seeming like it's defensive. That actually may come across to the patient on the phone there. So, you know, if you notice that you're worried a lot and you're very anxious when patients don't come back, that's something that you want to consider there. The third one is that if your patients don't get better, you feel bad. Now, I don't mean that you feel bad for them. If patients don't get better with our care, that is unfortunate and obviously we don't want that. But you feel bad about yourself. You feel that you let them down, that, oh, I obviously did a bad job with this or I should have done better. If you kind of feel yourself like beating yourself up because they didn't get better again, that's another sign that you're actually exhibiting some level of codependency with your patients. So those are three things to look out for. And they're very, very important because in the long run, those sorts of patterns of thought processes and those sorts of behaviors do predict whether somebody's going to burn out in the long term and actually end up stepping back and not helping patients. It also means that when you're with your patients, you're going to give up, sorry, you're going to give off a slightly needier energy and that's going to really diminish their trust and confidence in you. And we know that that has a big impact on not only whether they stick with the plan but, but whether your treatment works as effectively. So if any of those flag up for you, you want to have a little think about that and have a little think about where that might be coming from. It might be as simple as, you know, if you feel like, oh, you'd let them down, maybe you do need to upskill a little bit. Maybe you think, oh, yeah, I really don't know how to help these sorts of issues. Maybe I need to do some research or some training. You know, I'm not confident when they come in with a lower limb problem. So maybe it's a sign you might need to do some learning, or maybe it's a sign that you need to do a little bit more investigation. If patients, every time they don't come back, you're worried there's a good chance you're not actually calling them up to find out how they're doing. Not to bring them back, just to find out how they're doing. So if you do that, you may well find that actually a lot of them, they're not coming back because they got busy or something else in their life came up, or maybe they just started feeling better. And that feedback will help to reassure you because until you get that feedback, you're going to be worrying about them over and over and assuming the worst case scenario. So like I said, this might not seem like something we talk about. People often think about patient dependency, but in my experience that clinician dependency, it's a much bigger issue in the long term if it goes unchecked. So hopefully that's helpful for you. As always, you know where to find me. You can reach me if you've got any questions about this. If it's something you are struggling with, do reach out. Whether it's something I can help you with or I know some other excellent coaches who do a lot of work with this. I, I'm happy to refer you on those as well, but otherwise, I'll see you soon for another video. Take care, guys.