The Comfort Garden: Tales from the Trauma Unit

by Laurie Barkin

In this book, Laurie Barkin explores "Who will care for caregivers? The Comfort Garden: Tales from the Trauma Unit is a Book of the Year winner at the American Journal of Nursing (AJN) and a Nautilus award. The story is Laurie Barkin’s account of the five years she worked as a psychiatric nurse on the surgical/trauma unit at San Francisco General Hospital. Told against the backdrop of patients who survived motor vehicle accidents, falls, fires, fists, bullets, and knives, The Comfort Garden is a metaphor for the emotional support caregivers need. The story illuminates the issues of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma that may develop in caregivers when exposure to tragedy becomes routine. The Comfort Garden will appeal to health care professionals, firefighters, police, war veterans, social workers, journalists, students, and anyone whose life is touched by trauma. “The Comfort Garden reveals the real world ofhuman-to-human caring at its highest level.” — Jean Watson, RN, PhD, author of Human Caring Science: A Theory of Nursing “Laurie is that rare health professional with a gift for narrative and a story to tell. This is an important book for any health care worker, but especially for those of us who consider ourselves traumatic stress specialists. It reinforces the values and the spirit that brought us into the field. And it reminds us of the obstacles we face every day: human cruelty, social injustice, dwindling resources. Read this. You’ll be better for it.” — Frank M Ochberg MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Michigan State University Laurie Barkin “sensitively documents the process of vicarious trauma — how caregivers like herself internalize their patients' trauma.” — San Francisco Chronicle “In an age when hospitals have been turning to quicker-acting medications, faster discharges, and fewer deep and meaningful conversationswith patients, Laurie Barkin takes the opposite position. She urges us to make the time to use our knowledge of psychodynamic psychotherapy to help traumatized people early in the course of their distress.” — Lenore Terr MD, psychiatrist, author of Too Scared to Cry “Whenever we walk into a hospital or a doctor’s office we often assume that the patients are somehow broken, sick or frightened andthat the nurses and doctors are whole, healthy and brave. In stories that prove these assumptions false, Laurie Barkin shows us how permeable the line actually is between the cared for and the caregiver.” — Cortney Davis, author of The Heart’s Truth: Essays on the Art of Nursing “In an age when hospitals have been turning to quicker-acting medications, faster discharges, and fewer deep and meaningful conversationswith patients, Laurie Barkin takes the opposite position. She urges us to make the time to use our knowledge of psychodynamic psychotherapy to help traumatized people early in the courseof their distress.” — Lenore Terr MD, psychiatrist,author of Too Scared to Cry

Genres: Nursing, Medicine, Medical, Mental Health, Health Care

386 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2011

Reviews

[Lisa Huggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a Registered Nurse for 42 years. I have spent most of my career in acute care, adult ICUs, and Emergency Rooms. I don’t think I have ever read something that could so accurately reflect my thoughts and feelings while caring for critically ill and injured patients. Laurie unabashedly addresses all the emotions that we as nurses hold inside and minimize for the sake of just carrying on. She tells her stories of working as a psychiatric nurse practitioner in the eighties at San Francisco General Hospital at the height of the AIDS epidemic. She puts into words how it is to absorb trauma, live with survivors’ guilt, be bullied, deal with the demoralization of managed care (or mismanaged care, as she calls it), hear, see, and do unbelievable things and feel right at home and safe until everything starts to crumble.
Her writing style will make you feel like you are in her house sitting on the sofa or in the corner of the unit break room crying your eyes out. You will get to know her family, her friends, her trusted colleagues, and not so trusted ones. You will feel like you are at work one minute and home cooking dinner the next while still reliving the events of the day. By the end of the book, you will see her as a friend, a counselor, and most of all someone who “gets it”.

[Lila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful and well-written. Laurie Barkin is a psychiatric nurse at San Francisco General Hospital, and shares her stories working with trauma patients. She weaves in her own story along the way-how her career has changed her, the difficulties of managed care, and the gaping lack of support for healthcare professionals like herself, who spend their days listening to heart wrenching and terrifying stories. Really opened my eyes to the extent that trauma impacts a person, sometimes for a lifetime, as well as those who care for them.

[Judit Gueta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not what I expected but it gave me a lot of insight.

[Jeffrey Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Comfort Garden is a compelling, true narrative of a psychiatric nurse on a trauma unit, who realizes her work is causing adverse affects on her life. All caregivers in the helping professions exposed to tragic events should be aware of the risk for "vicarious trauma" and take steps to prevent or mitigate it. Laurie Barkin's sensitive, disturbing portrayal has done a service by highlighting the importance of addressing the emotional needs of caregivers.

[Josephine Ensign · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important book in the small but growing category of nurses writing about the intersection of their work and their personal lives. I appreciated Barkin's use of the of her interaction with the hospital's comfort garden where she worked as a trauma mental health nurse—as an extended metaphor for self-care and healing in her own life. My favorite chapters came at the end of the book: "Who will take care of the caregivers?" and "If I am not a nurse, who am I?"

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir from the POV of a psych. nurse who comes under managed care. Raises important questions about how those who deal with trauma deal (or don't deal) with the horror of trauma. A good first person account, but not a lot of reflection on the issues of race and class that contribute to the experience of trauma.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written personal account of dealing with the effects of absorbing trauma through your work. There was something about reading another clinician's story that felt both familiar and validating. A strong reminder that we must care for ourselves in order to care for others.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories from a psych trauma nurse working in San Francisco in the 90s. Many of the stories are really affecting and can be hard to read, but gives you a great perspective on how medical personnel should (and often don't) treat all factors which will affect patient care and recovery.