The Resilient Practitioner: Burnout Prevention and Self-Care Strategies for Counselors, Therapists, Teachers, and Health Professionals, Second Edition ... Historical, and Cultural Perspectives)
Therapists and other helping professionals, such as teachers, doctors and nurses, social workers, and clergy, work in highly demanding fields and can suffer from burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary stress. This happens when they give more attention to their clients’ well being than their own. Both students and practitioners in these fields will find this book an essential guide to striking an optimal balance between self-care and other-care. The authors describe the joys and hazards of the work, the long road from novice to senior practitioner, the essence of burnout, ways to maintain the professional and personal self, methods experts use to maintain vitality, and a self-care action plan. Vivid real-life examples and self-reflection questions will engage and motivate readers to think about their own work and ways to enhance their own resilience. Eloquently written and supported by extensive research, helping professionals will find this a valuable resource both when a novice and when an experienced practitioner.
For a professional psychologist, professor teaching work-shops around the world, Tom seems very clueless sometimes. When it comes to the stories from his past, at least. The authors were surprised that Turkish students got offended when he corrected their English, and I imagine he wasn't there as an English teacher. And the story of a poor sick boy really broke my heart. It's also a bit funny to see how they overuse exclamation marks, and some jokes are very adorable because they are the kind of thing your parents would post on Facebook. I am always very amused to see academics try to appeal and/or analyze the younger generation. In my opinion the book is also very repetitive and could have been twice as short. I liked how it's written in a friendly tone, like a normal conversation rather than boring academic text-book. However, I guess, it is also that tone to blame for a bit "watery" content. Otherwise, I of course found it very interesting and helpful. UPD: now that I'm finished, I can tell you for sure that this book is, indeed, very repetitive.
Good analysis of burnout, but continues to leave several issues unresolved. For example, talks about the importance of development of identity in helping professions two years out of graduate school, and states the importance of needing good mentorship and healthy relationships in the agency. So what happens when you don't have any of those things? What if you cannot create a "greenhouse"? Continues to be a book on burnout that blames the worker. I do that enough myself.
I'm not really sure what my opinion on this book is. On the one hand, it was helpful as I learned a lot and thought over some things I hadn't before. On the other hand, I felt it was actually very guilt-inducing for a book on burnout prevention ! The authors kept going on about being a competent therapist and how burnout makes you less efficient, and, I mean... I'm really not sure that's what you need to focus on when you're on the verge (or in the middle) of burnout. I wish there had been more on how clients can be and actually sometimes are entitled and mean and how to deal with that, but while reading, I felt like the focus was placed on serving others no matter how they behave. I think that can be very detrimental to mental health in our professions, and learning how to set and maintain boudaries is SO important, I feel there should have been more of that in the book.
"Helping others with significant concerns in their lives can be highly effective, satisfying, and meaningful. It can be great work. To do this well, however, we must constantly attach and separate successfully, over and over again, with person after person. We experience ambiguous professional loss, normative failure, secondary trauma, and vicarious traumatization. Yet, we must continually invest positively in others, and this means constant renewal of the self and an ongoing focus on the intricate balance between caring for others versus caring for self. Our work can be so valuable and so pleasurable"
Highly recommend book for practitioners and students in the helping fields! So many good takeaways to help me reflect on my journey to becoming a clinical psychologist.
Simply a must read for novice practitioners. I read this with my supervisor, and this book gave important guidance for the realities of working in the helping profession and how to manage the challenges the helper faces. Whether you find yourself in the ambiguity of starting your helping career (therapist, nurse practitioner, teacher, pastor, etc.) or you have been working for sometime, this is a must read.
Not a page-turner. But loaded with relatable insights and strategies to prevent and respond to burn-out and build resilience in high-contact professions such as clergy, mental health practitioner, counselor and teacher. Read it for a class... but I believe the exercises in it and the examples mentioned will stay with me for a long time professionally and personally.
Excellent resources for practitioners and anyone who works in the caring professions. And teachers! Well written, easy to read, includes self reflection exercises to help you create a plan to beat burnout.
This is a great book for learning how to take care of yourself if you're in the helping professions. I felt like I already knew a lot of this information from my MSW program, but it's helpful to have reminders.
What’s good? Learning how to survive in a high stress job. What’s not good? Reading a book where the authors quote their other works and use shitty metaphors.