A place of greater safety
While counselling in the past was considered solely for those in real mental distress, the largest sea change has been in the understanding that it is a vital tool in attaining your personal and career goals. Fionnuala Walsh reports
Against a backdrop of increasing volume and complexity in legal work, there has been a sea change in how practitioners approach counselling and support services, though the structure of the legal profession as a whole continues to need to be reviewed.
Antoinette Moriarty (director of Solicitor Services) says that the integrity of the justice system rests upon lawyers being well: "If you think about the judiciary, if they are overloaded with work, not having rest time, not having an opportunity to reflect deeply, even occasionally, you can imagine the fatigue that would set in to your decision-making."
She adds: "It's pretty fundamental to me that people have the scaffolding while they're well – to maintain their wellness over the period of their careers."
Moriarty says that legal professionals can be presented with incredibly challenging work and need to process what can be horrifying material at times. She adds that while some are able to speak with counsellors and debrief, many feel that they need to figure things out alone.
"If you continue to feed practitioners with work, you increase the pace and the complexity of the work, but you don't increase the scaffolding to keep up with that," she warns.
"It's no surprise then that, over time, the material about other people's trauma becomes lodged in the professionals who are also coming into contact with it."
Normal people
Moriarty says that younger trainees often have a high capacity to speak to each other about counselling.
For her, the most joyful part of being involved is in providing a counselling framework and to hear young men, in particular, shouting across a busy space, "I can't see you now because I'm going down to see my counsellor."
She adds: "In the past, counselling was largely considered to be for anybody who was in real mental distress. The biggest sea change is that this service is now understood to be something you go to while well, but curious about it. It's a space with a professional who is interested in you.
"They don't have a position on what you bring, and are never going to share the content of that session with another person. The counsellor is there to try to enable you to think deeply about your purpose, your mission.
"We've been very intentional in influencing that change from being something you might avail of if, for instance, you suffer a bereavement or if you go through a period of being depressed or highly anxious.
"Now, about 90% of trainees availing of our counselling service are probably as well as they will ever be – psychologically, emotionally and mentally."
Wretched of the earth
Human-rights lawyer Cristina Stamatescu says that lawyers are often the first person a client may have opened up to. When she talks to clients about their personal struggles, she often gets the same answer: "No one's ever asked me that before."
Lawyers can also find themselves engaging with clients who have suffered significant trauma in their lives.
Cristina says: "There are different levels of torture that people might have experienced. In international protection claims, for example, they might never have disclosed this because they've never sat across from someone who they could build up a relationship with and discuss it.
"I cry a lot, because it's getting life-changing results for people who have been extremely traumatised," she says. "It may be physical and psychological torture, and they've been in this country maybe for two, three, four years, but they've never mentioned it to anyone before."
Cristina warns that legal professionals must first be cognisant of their own wellbeing in order to fulfil their professional duties: "It's absolutely important, and I think that's part of Antoinette's work, to remind us to be aware that we need that support. We need to mind ourselves so that we can mind others."
Cristina works in crime, family, employment, and general-practice law, but the strongest community she encounters is from the asylum and immigration list: "I know, with confidence, that I can pick up a phone and discuss a particular case with a colleague or call my opposite number.
"There is that trust that you can discuss a case or talk about the day with another colleague as you meet them in the coffee shop."
For Cristina, this collegiality is a safe space, though it can't replace the level of support provided for by a counsellor: "There's a limit to how much you can reveal to a colleague but, of course, it's better than nothing. It keeps us going and we're able to talk openly and address issues and explore any common ground."
East of Eden
Having the confidence to reach out for help is difficult, but should always be encouraged, the solicitor says: "We need to accept that there's no failure whatsoever in being vulnerable or feeling that your pores are saturated with work and that you need to take a break. It's absolutely normal to reach out to a colleague, to the Law Society and Antoinette in Psychological Services, or to a family member.
"It's absolutely okay to take a break – the world won't end. I've recently learned that it's okay to say no to work, and it's okay to set your own boundaries and limits.
"There's a huge world out there – all you need to do is just lift your head and look around you. It's not a matter of giving up – you just need to take a break."
Fionnuala Walsh is a Courts News Ireland journalist.