Candy Avila

SOWK 481

Professor Ottone

October 22, 2023

CSWE Applying Concepts of Managing Stress to Practice

I believe that being in the social work profession comes with its challenges. I think for

me personally a big challenge is going to be the case management. Hearing and seeing many

different cases may be difficult on my heart and mind. I also think that I may take things outside

of my field placement and internalize them if I don’t talk about it. Based on the video I think that

exhaustion is very common among college students. Exhaustion can be physical and emotional, I

personally have long and early days at my field placement as well as on the days I have class.

There are also those challenges in everyone’s personal life that may be a factor in an individual’s

mental health and that results in poor results in field and in class work. During watching this

video, I learned about cynicism, which I did not know about before. I think that cynicism is a

real thing that occurs to a lot of helping professionals when they are tired and lose sense of why

they are in their profession.

I think an assumption I have of burn out is that it leads to poor motivation or depression.

Moving forward this has a lot to do self-care and happiness. If we have healthy habits to

maintain then we will have better results in our work. I think moving forward this can be

addressed by putting an emphasize on self-care and encouraging myself and my peers to

remember their ‘why’ in this profession. There is also the need to keep learning regardless of

where you are at in your career. This can be done by going to different trainings or gaining

experience from supervision. In this module there was also a point made about needing therapy
or else we wont adequately serve our clients. A way to avoid burnout and stress is to talk to

someone or handle our emotions in some kind of way.

When managing my stress, I usually want to keep it to myself. However, I tend to express

it externally and other people notice it. I have a bit of sighing loud and the people around me ask

“are you okay” and I usually respond with “yes, I just have a lot going on”. However, I have also

heard from my friends that I do so much but that I seem to manage it all so well. I think I manage

my stress the best when I make time for things such as getting laundry done, washing dishes, and

making time at the library. Making time in my schedule to get work done will alleviate my stress

of needing to get it done. This will also remove some of the worry that can weigh on my mind

along with other things. An important thing that I need to improve on is stopping myself from

getting too involved and having too many things on my plate. I mean this by the organizations I

currently am involved in as they take up a large portion of my free time. Although I enjoy doing

them after I graduate, I will need to prioritize my career and find less time-consuming things I

enjoy.

One of the values most important in my life is honesty. Honesty comes into play with

managing my stress by being honest with my superiors. If I am feeling stressed and like I can’t

manage all the tasks I may have on my plate I will tell the president of my organization at school

or my field supervisor what I have going on. I am a very strong advocate for communication and

being transparent with a person has going on in their life. This is something I value from other

people and so I do the same. Another value I have is independence which conflicts sometimes

with managing stress. I do not go to therapy and for myself I do not think I would enjoy therapy

however I know it works for other individuals. This is a challenge when handling my emotions

which can deal to more stress which may inhibit my work with individuals.
 After watching this video and reading the report there are many takeaways about burnout

and handling stress. I think knowing the specific stages of burn out was important to know from

the video. This helps to know now when I am experiencing something what I should do and how

I should prevent from getting worse. Going into my last year of my BSW I think applying what I

learned and finding ways to take care of my mental and physical health is important. Especially

as I plan to pursue a graduate degree and into my career. A long-term goal I have for myself is to

take better care of my health my going to the gym, eating nutritious meals, and having good

sleeping habits. This will allow for my body to feel better overall and alleviate unnecessary

stress. It is also important for my physical health to be a priority to function and prevent other

issues. A short-term goal I have for myself is to vent more to my friends and start to journal my

feelings. This will allow for everything that may be internalized to be released harmlessly and

effectively. As social workers we are working with individuals and the needs of individuals and

how we may want to fix them. Making sure we are equipped and able to acquire these needs is

important and significant to our roles.