Carter PMHNP

Does your job get everything while your life gets what’s left? Andrea Yurcak, PA, joins me for an honest conversation about professional burnout, trauma, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.

After nearly 20 years in emergency medicine, Andrea shares what working through COVID brought to the surface and how her own experience in therapy changed the way she cares for patients. We talk about grief, the layers of trauma we carry, and why seeking help doesn’t have to mean walking away from a career you worked hard to build.

We also explore what it looks like to bring psychotherapy and medication management together. Does healing require finding a single “root cause”? What is it like to try IFS therapy when you’re skeptical? And how do you recognize when pushing through is no longer working?

You don’t have to work in healthcare to recognize the feeling of coming home exhausted, losing interest in your hobbies, or having little left for the people you love. This conversation is about making room for yourself in a life built around caring for others.

“Your life’s work and your job don’t need to be the same.”

READ AND LISTEN

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Learn about our work at Leaf Psychiatry:

https://www.leafpsychiatry.com

Subscribe for more conversations about mental health, trauma, and the work of becoming whole. Share this episode with someone who spends their days caring for everyone else.

What helps you make room for a life outside work? Let me know in the comments.

Hosted by Carter Doyle, PMHNP-BC, with Andrea Yurcak, PA.

Life doesn’t have to hurt.

Content note: This episode includes discussion of grief, traumatic medical experiences, and the death of a child.

This conversation is for educational purposes and is not individualized medical advice. Please discuss personal treatment decisions with your own clinician.

#Burnout #IFSTherapy #MentalHealthPodcast #HealthcareBurnout #TraumaRecovery

What is conversion therapy, and how do you recognize it when nobody calls it therapy? In this episode, I explain sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts (SOGICE) and what families, faith leaders, and LGBTQ+ people need to know.

I’m Carter Doyle, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and nursing PhD student. Drawing on published research, I explore how people describe attempts to change or suppress sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

We discuss conversion therapy and reparative therapy, how change efforts can be framed as spiritual growth or healing from “brokenness,” and why a program’s name may not tell us what happens within it. We also examine the difference between open exploration and a predetermined outcome, what prevalence research can tell us, and questions families and leaders can ask to better understand someone’s experience.

Faith, prayer, counseling, or a person’s choice to remain celibate do not establish conversion practices on their own. We need to understand the purpose, expectations, and context of the experience, including what happens when someone disagrees or does not change.

This conversation is not about assigning someone an identity or telling them what their faith must become. It is about listening closely enough to understand what they experienced and what kind of support they need.

This is Episode 1 of my series on conversion therapy, its effects, and recovery. Subscribe for the remaining episodes, including my personal story, the evidence on efficacy and harm, healing, and practical guidance for families and leaders.

Life doesn’t have to hurt.

This video provides education, not individualized mental health advice.

#ConversionTherapy #SOGICE #LGBTQMentalHealth #FaithAndSexuality #MentalHealthEducation