Therapy for humanitarian aid workers

Humanitarian work can be deeply meaningful. At the same time, it can also be extremely demanding.

Humanitarian aid workers often spend weeks, months and years of their lives responding to crises, supporting other people, navigating uncertainty and carrying significant responsibility. We move frequently, live away from family, work long hours and find ourselves repeatedly adapting to new environments. There is often little time to stop and consider what the work is asking of us emotionally.

And because the work is often meaningful, it can be difficult to acknowledge when it is also taking a toll. We often think that “other people have it worse” or “that you should be able to cope with this” or “that you only need to get through this assignment and all will be good”. But difficult experiences don’t become less important because someone else has experienced something worse.

Humanitarians often face issues like:

• Burnout and emotional exhaustion. Humanitarian work can involve sustained periods of pressure. Over time, constantly giving your energy to work, colleagues and people affected by crises can leave little room for your own needs.You may begin to feel emotionally or physically exhausted. Things that once mattered to you may feel distant. Rest may no longer feel restorative.
• Life between deployments and countries. International humanitarian careers can involve frequent deployments and transitions. You may move from one country to another, return home between assignments or find yourself constantly rebuilding routines and relationships. This can be exciting and meaningful, but repeated change can also become tiring and you may struggle to feel settled anywhere. Therapy can provide continuity when other parts of life keep changing.
• Returning home after humanitarian work. After an intense assignment, everyday life can feel strangely unfamiliar. People around you may ask how it was, but there may be parts of the experience that are difficult to explain. You may find that your priorities have changed or that ordinary concerns feel different from before.
• Who are you if you are not a humanitarian? For many people, humanitarian work becomes more than a job. It can become a community, a source of purpose, an identity and a way of understanding the world. So what happens when you begin to question it? Maybe you’re thinking about leaving the sector. Maybe you’ve already left. Maybe you simply want to understand who you are beyond your professional role. Leaving humanitarian work can bring relief, grief, uncertainty and excitement – all at the same time.
• Relationships, deployment and life outside work. Humanitarian work doesn’t exist separately from the rest of your life. Deployments, relocations and demanding workloads can affect relationships with partners, family and friends. You may find it difficult to maintain closeness across distance. Or you may notice that the person you are at work feels very different from the person you are at home. You also may struggle to build meaningful friendships and relationships in the environment where people are not staying and there is a constant turnover of humanitarian staff.