ABSTRACT
Stephen Covey, in his best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), uses sharpening the saw as a metaphor for self-renewal. A man is working furiously to saw down a tree and is exhausted by the labor and how long it is taking him. “Why don’t you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen the saw?” you ask him. “It would make it go faster.” “I don’t have time,” he says. “I’m too busy sawing!” Take time to sharpen the saw: physically, emotionally, socially, mentally, and spiritually. To be an effective-and happy-therapist, you need to keep your instrument, yourself, sharp at all times. There is a direct link between well-being and personal effectiveness, and both therapists and their consumers suffer when therapists do not take the time to take care of themselves (Kearney, 1990; O’Connor, 2001).
