Meet Sandra, a 26-year-old female working for a bank. Sandra was off work for mental health leave after reporting feeling overwhelmed and unmotivated when she learned about an increased revenue target at work.
Sandra admitted that she had always had some anxiety challenges but after a year in her current position, she felt very insecure and highly anxious around her boss. By suffering in silence, her fear mounted to the point where she couldn’t function or get herself into the workplace.
Through MindBeacon’s Return to Work (RTW) assessment, it was identified that Sandra was experiencing severe symptoms of depression and moderate symptoms of anxiety. The assessment also identified her mental health symptoms were significantly interfering with daily functioning and the assigned clinician understood what her specific RTW barriers were. Her assigned MindBeacon therapist created a treatment plan based on the unique needs identified in her assessment, and she began treatment within a week after being referred.
During her treatment, Sandra began learning about the value of work in her life. She understood how her work gave her a purpose, a focus, and a sense of self which had been lacking in her life since she stopped working. This also further fed into her anxiety but through dialogue with her therapist, she learned how a structure and a focus to her day did not allow her to ‘think’ and ruminate over her fears and worries.
Her therapist encouraged her to practice behavioural activation, which helped her incorporate walks, chores and some self-care self-indulgences to her daily life. She practiced a routine of these activities for two weeks when she started to feel a bit better. She learned that sometimes you need to follow a ‘plan’ and not a ‘feeling’ in order to get her motivation back.
Therapy also focused on her faulty way of thinking: assuming the worst about her boss, jumping to conclusions that she couldn’t manage the new workload, that her workplace was unfair, and more. She learned to see situations differently, even within her own personal life. The dialogue with her therapist gave her courage to try new things in her world and test out her hypothesis about her new learnings. Sandra also learned some skills around effective communication and felt more equipped to have conversations with her boss upon returning to work, to advocate and discuss ways she could be supported to manage the changes that were happening in the workplace.
After completing MindBeacon's Return to Work program, Sandra successfully returned to work. Click here to read more about her journey in returning to work.
If you're interested in learning more about our Return to Work program, contact us here.