Abstract: This quantitative study measured perceived stress levels, stress management and self-care techniques among social work graduate students at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) School of Social Work. The sample consisted of 60 graduate social work students currently enrolled at CSULB, the majority of whom identified as female. Participants were asked to rate their feelings and thoughts with 10 statements related to perceived stress levels. Participants were also asked to rate their use of coping strategies with 19 statements related to stress management. Study findings indicate that social work graduate students experience moderate levels of stress as well as utilize a wide-range of coping tactics inclusive of healthy/constructive and unhealthy/less constructive strategies. This study’s findings were consistent with the findings of previous research that explored stress levels and coping techniques among students in higher education.
Acute prolonged stress is associated with burnout and negative health outcomes. Informed by ecological systems theory and the diathesis-stress model, this exploratory study investigated possible relationships between demographics, perceived stress, and interest level in learning about self-care and stress management techniques in a classroom setting. A convenience sample of second-year MSW students (n = 68) was drawn from California State University and respondents were asked to rate their level of interest among a set of choices of potential self-care topics. Results indicated that students experience high levels of stress and are very interested in learning self-care techniques in a classroom, though these two issues were not correlated (r = -.059, p > .05). Participants were most interested in learning about how to reduce stress and avoid burnout. Results may be used to guide choice of curriculum for a class that teaches self-care or has a self-care component.
Self-care is critical for effective and ethical counseling practice and this inspirational book offers diverse, realistic perspectives on how to achieve work–life balance and personal wellness from graduate school through retirement. In addition to the authors’ unique perspectives as professionals at different stages of their careers, guest contributors—ranging from graduate students, to new professionals, to seasoned counselors—share their experiences and thoughts about self-care, including what challenges them most. Both personal and conversational in tone, this book will help you to create your own practical self-care action plan through reflection on important issues, such as managing stress, establishing personal and professional boundaries, enhancing relationships, and finding meaning in life. "Counselors face the obstacle of remembering to care for themselves while focusing on caring for others. In Counselor Self-Care, Drs. Gerald Corey, Michelle Muratori, Jude Austin, and Julius Austin lead 52 contributing authors in a book rich with living events and defining moments. Multiple stressors are described and met with multiple solutions. There is so much great content here that can be embraced by those who do the noble work of being present for others." —Tom Skovholt, PhD, LP, Professor, University of Minnesota; Author of The Resilient Practitioner: Burnout and Compassion Fatigue Prevention and Self-Care Strategies for the Helping Professions, 3rd Edition "Self-care is often discussed in counselor training and supervision, but not in its full scope. Counselor Self-Care provides breadth and depth by addressing the many facets of self-care. The authors combine personal narratives and anecdotes from experienced mental health professionals with self-assessment questions and self-care improvement strategies. The level of vulnerability and insight from the authors, and those who share their stories, is informative and rare to find. Assign this book as reading for yourself, your students, and your supervisees to motivate nurturing of the self." —Philip Clarke, PhD, Associate Professor, Wake Forest University *Requests for digital versions from ACA can be found on www.wiley.com *To request print copies, please visit the ACA https://imis.counseling.org/store/detail *Reproduction requests for material from books published by ACA should be directed to [email protected]
The perceived stress levels of psychology graduate students across the nation is greatly increasing. Stress can lead to many mental health disorders in students, along with a lack of enthusiasm and meaning in one's work, impairment in ethical decision making, lack of compassion for clients, burnout, and neglecting one's physical health. A majority of the research regarding perceived stress and psychology graduate students include clinical and counseling psychology, yet school psychology graduate students share the same responsibilities and roles. School psychology graduate students balance rigorous coursework, graduate assistantships, supervising meetings for their training, research, and additional service opportunities with life outside of graduate school. A stress reduction technique commonly researched with graduate students is self-care, the process of actively initiating a method to promote holistic well-being. According to the participant's responses, self-care practices do not have an effect on school psychology graduate students' levels of stress. However, the graduate students noted that program expectations, such as time limitations and an excessive workload, are their largest stressors and physical and emotional self-care practices are utilized the most amongst the participants.
This graduate project focused on understanding what levels of stress social work graduate students are experiencing, explore if the social work graduate students' level of perceived stress is related to the development of somatic symptoms, and understand if the amount of hours worked relate to somatic symptoms. The researcher's current hypothesis is that students' perceived stress level will be related to emotional, psychological, and overall physical health and is displayed through somatic symptoms. To demonstrate the effect of the number of hours worked, perceived stress, and life event stressors on somatic symptoms, a multiple hierarchical regression model was used to analyze the relationship. The findings revealed that perceived stress is a stronger predictor of somatic symptoms. Is it not so much events of Masters of Social Work (MSW) students' lives that cause somatic symptoms but how MSW students perceived the life event stressors that is related to somatic symptoms. Limitations to the study included having a small and non-randomized sample size. Further research with a larger and randomized sample size is recommended to support the external validity of the study and apply the results to the general population of MSW graduate students. vi The findings could be helpful in supporting practices that could assist MSW graduate students in reducing their perceived stress and somatic symptoms. As a result this could improve MSW graduate students' emotional, psychological, and overall medical health and may prepare them to provide the best quality service to the community and society.
School psychologists, like many others in clinical or service providing professions, experience significant stressors in their day to day professional functioning. The literature demonstrates correlations between chronic occupational stressors and burnout and indicates consistent self-care practices can help mitigate symptoms of burnout (De Vibe, Solhaug, Rosenvinge, Tyssen, Hanley & Garland, 2018). Literature is lacking, however, in regard to graduate student stress for students enrolled in school psychology programs. Research conducted on psychology and medical graduate students indicate high degrees of stress and low levels of successful coping strategies; it is likely that similar trends would be found among school psychology graduate students given the similarities in program and training demands (Colman, Echon, Lemay, McDonald, Smith, Spencer & Swift, 2016; Goncher, Sherman, Barnett & Haskins, 2012; Shannon, Simmelink-McCleary, Becher & Crook-Lyon, 2014). The National Association of School Psychologists' ethical standards do not directly address self-care, though the ethical demand for such practices can be derived from the standard directing school psychologists to "take steps to protect all students from reasonably foreseeable risk of harm" (NASP, p.2). Emphasis of self-care during graduate training can provide the basis for a successful self-care system as students enter the profession of school psychology. This paper specifically addresses the emotional, cognitive and social aspects of self-care as they pertain to graduate students enrolled in school psychology programs. The information discussed in this paper supplies part of a handbook created for use by school psychology graduate students to assist in informing the creation of a personal self-care system. Information regarding the physical aspects of self-care, such as care of the body through exercise, sleep and nutrition, is supplied through the work completed by Burlinda Seals, a fellow CSUN graduate student enrolled in the school psychology program. The handbook is a cumulation of our collective review of the literature in the areas of burnout, stressors within graduate school as well as the profession of school psychology, and effective self-care practices.
Both graduate school and the professional role of a school psychologist are demanding and extremely stressful. The rate of burnout for school psychologists at some point in their professional careers is nearly 90% (Randolph & Boan-Lonzo, 2017), while 70% of professional psychology graduate students report stress that is severe enough to interfere with their functioning (El-Ghoroury, Galper, Sawaqdeh, & Bufka, 2012). The best way to inoculate oneself against the effects of these stressors is to develop a strong self-care habit; 80% of those graduate students in professional psychology programs that reported habitually engaging in behaviors of self-care were more successful than those that did not (Colman et al., 2016). However, roughly 30% of graduate programs in psychology even mention self-care in their graduate handbooks, and the handbooks that did mention self-care did so only in the context of distressed students seeking support from a counselor (Zahniser, Rupert, and Dorociak, 2017). This project is a handbook designed to aid graduate students in building their self-care practice into one that will benefit them throughout their professional lives. Specifically, this project examines the physical areas of self-care: diet, exercise, and sleep. The National Association of School Psychologists identified physical self-care as one of three main areas of an effective self-care routine. The project was developed in consultation with a fellow graduate student, who is designing a conjoint project that focuses on the other two areas of self-care named by NASP, social care and emotional health. The project includes information and worksheets to guide students in building their self-care practices as well as useful resources.
