When Teaching Hurts: Understanding Burnout, Trauma and Moral Injury

This is a psychoeducational group for teachers who are experiencing burnout, chronic stress, trauma, or a loss of trust in the place they work.

It is for teachers who arrive with two questions: what happened to me, and how do I recover? The group is psychoeducational rather than reflective. It sets out what is understood about stress, burnout, trauma and moral injury, and leaves each person to apply it to their own situation.

What the group covers:

• The difference between stress, burnout, trauma and moral injury.
• What prolonged exposure to stress can do to the nervous system.
• When a workplace experience changes how you see yourself, and the line between personal and professional identity.
• Loss of trust in leadership, in colleagues, and in a system.
• Shame and self-doubt, and why leaving does not necessarily make the psychological impact disappear.
• Making sense of what happened.
• The impact on family and on quality of life.

As with any psychological work, what people take from it differs, and outcomes cannot be guaranteed.

If you are also weighing up what comes after teaching, Beyond the Classroom is the forward-looking companion to this group.