The Inner Game of Job Searching

Work is a big part of our identity, and unemployment can have crush one psychologically and emotionally.

Many psychological issues can be triggered by being out of a job and the efforts to find one.

The need to go on interviews can prompt anxiety.  Of course, anxiety is a downward spiral that can interfere with interview performance.

Hearing “No” and persisting, in the vulnerable unemployed state, is hard for some people.  Hearing “No” again and again is depressing for just about everyone.  But in therapy, human beings of any age can grow, and grow stronger, and learn to hear “No” and keep marching forward.

Dwindling savings can cause both anxiety and depression.  Money problems can also cause marital problems.  Family is supposed to support us on life’s hairpin turns, but sometimes the family bonds need help before they can nurture and sustain us in a difficult moment.

Many job-seekers are not comfortable or are not used to tooting their own horn.  When people go on a job search, they take with them the same emotional baggage of low self-esteem and low self-worth that they picked up in childhood.  These issues can be healed in therapy.

But even though we might be looking at an old emotional scar, one does not need to spend years in therapy to deal with it.  The mind is more flexible than any other part of our being, and therapy does not even necessarily need to deal with ancient history.  Therapy can often focus just on the current problem.

Being able to laugh at your problems (while doing something constructive about them) is a sign of mental health.  The movies and TV series, whose posters appear on this page could entertain the job seeker while he or she is working on emotional issues in therapy.