I am not a social worker, but I have been doing therapy for the past 5 years and believe I can speak to a number of the issues you raise in your OP. As far as my own post-bachelor’s education, I completed a terminal MS in Clinical Psychology in 2011 and am currently working on my PhD in Clinical Psychology–I just have my dissertation and pre-doctoral internship to go. I have also dealt with depression for much of my life.
Doing therapy can absolutely be emotionally grueling for the clinician. This is particularly true when it comes to working with severely depressed clients, and, unless you work in an extremely specialized area, you will have many of these kinds of clients in your caseload. Similarly, hearing about trauma, family dysfunction, loss, and a host of other life challenges can be really, really draining–especially when you’re hearing about awful life situation after awful life situation all day long. There have been many times when I’ve left sessions feeling completely emotionally (and even physically) drained, and in some cases, I have felt my own depressive tendencies start to sort of ‘re-activate.’ Usually, this is very short-lived (like, confined to the five minutes you’ve got between one client and the next) and it’s never been to the point of spawning a full blown relapse, but it can certainly be tough. I feel like I have gotten much better at dealing with this as I have become more experienced; talking about it in individual and group supervision (which you will do throughout your education on at least a 1 hour per week basis, and, depending on your licensure status, continue to do after graduation) has also helped.
Nevertheless, there are times when I have taken my work home with me, emotionally-speaking. Often, this takes the form of me worrying about a client that’s in severe distress (for example, thinking things like, despite our safety plan, will that client try and kill herself this weekend?) or racking my brain about how on Earth to be helpful in the next session….that is, doubting my abilities; taking too much responsibility for the client’s welfare and forgetting that the impetus for change is, at the end of the day, on them. All told, though, while it is emotionally taxing, doing therapy has never caused me to have another depressive episode or anything even remotely close to it.
I think it’s also important to note that having personal experience with depression (or other mental health/life experiences) can be a tremendous asset to you as a clinician. Not to say that those who have never experienced a particular thing first hand can’t be effective, but it does make it MUCH easier to be able to ‘get it’ than would otherwise be the case. Your ability to be empathize—and, in turn, for your clients to perceive you as empathetic—is, in my opinion, the single most important quality of a good therapist.
Doing therapy has also helped me in other ways, emotionally speaking. For example, I spent about a year working an extremely difficult couple’s case—the husband and wife involved were both horribly contemptuous towards one another and their conflicts were, more often than not, absolutely ridiculous. Their views were so rigid and entrenched that they were in a pretty much constant state of marital turmoil. While extremely frustrating to work with, they also made me immensely appreciative of my own relationship and value the connection I have with my partner and his contributions to making us ‘work.’ There were times when I would text him right after meeting with them and need to express my gratitude for him right then and there. This sort of gratitude instillation has happened with other clients/situations, too, but I think you get the idea. The biggest emotional payoff, though, comes from how rewarding it is when you are able to see that you’ve made progress with a client. I’ve now had many, many moments like this, and, unlike the temporary depressive residue that will sometimes linger after a rough session like I spoke of earlier, this sticks with you throughout the whole day and is more intense than any job-related satisfaction I’ve felt in other lines of work, with the possible exception of teaching.
Speaking of teaching. If you have concerns about the toll clinical work will take on your mental health and you’re ambivalent about research (I wasn’t sure about that from your OP but it seems like that’s the case), but you love psychology, why not consider teaching? I’m not sure of the ‘rules’ in each state (assuming you’re even from the US) but you generally are able to teach at the undergraduate level with an MS in social work or clinical/counseling/school psychology. In my program, we are required to take coursework related to being effective as a psychology instructor, and then teach as part of our doctoral fellowship. I have taught an intro level course, Psychological Perspectives on Prejudice and Discrimination, and an advanced course on the psychology of human sexuality (which covers criminal sexual behavior, paraphilias, and ‘atypical’ and marginalized sexual activity), and I have loved each of these experiences. However, being a professor can take an emotional toll, too: you’ll have apathetic students; entitled students; students who try really, really hard and still fail miserably; students who don’t understand boundaries so well and think that you can give them counseling because you know about psychology and overshare…shudder
In addition to teaching, there are some other options that might also be worth some exploration: academic/career advising, psychodiagnostic or neuropsychological assessment, school psychology, industrial organizational psychology, forensics, and academic skills training/support. (The level of training and type of program that’s required/recommended for each of these paths will vary, but there’s plenty of time to scope things out). There are also ‘kinds’ of therapy that might be more insulating from taking on emotionally draining cases…for example, didactic or skills training groups.
One other thing to be aware of as you make your decision: the toll of graduate school itself. While the clinical work itself can be emotionally challenging, this has been nothing, nothing, nothing, compared to the horrors of a graduate program. That is, it hasn’t been my work with depressed clients that’s caused me to contemplate getting back on antidepressants, think about getting another round of my own therapy, triggered panic attacks, or caused me to start grappling with suicidal ideation…it’s been the 70 hour work-week (between classes, practicum, teaching, and research requirements) for (if you’re lucky) an absolute pittance (or, if you’re unlucky) crippling student loan debt. Relationships with family and friends will suffer. Your own self-care, which in my case, is absolutely essential to warding off depression, will go down the proverbial toilet. If you decide you do need your own therapy during this time, it may be hard to get because the on-campus clinic employs your classmates, your professors and supervisors, or you may even work there yourself; similarly, you may have connections with therapists in the community or be unable to afford treatment in the first place. There’s also a lot of pressure both externally and internally to get through the program in a ‘timely manner,’ and often stiff requirements about GPA (like having to retake any course in which you get a B- or lower). You will likely have a faculty mentor, and some of these are callous, exploitive individuals who know that you are relatively powerless in your relationship with them as you need them to pass classes or research requirements or need them to write letters of recommendation and will subsequently take you for all you are worth. Of course, others are amazing, but it pretty much luck-of-the-draw. All told, the graduate school environment can have a profound impact on your mental health. As you consider prospective programs, talk to current/former students about this, especially the part about whether or not self-care is valued and encouraged.
Best of luck to you!