Main description:

Mental health professionals spend their days helping others, but who is there to help them when stress and burnout threaten their own well-being? Filled with self-assessments, journaling exercises, and activities designed to facilitate renewal, growth, and change, this timely book helps clinicians help themselves with coverage of career threatening issues, such as fear of failure, loss of confidence, and the financial stress and loss of autonomy that many clinician's experience as a result of managed care and its constraints.

Contents:

Introduction vii Part I Confronting the Issues 1 Chapter 1 On Being a Therapist and the Consequences of This Choice 3 Chapter 2 Joys and Privileges of Therapeutic Work 17 Chapter 3 Identifying Sources of Stress 31 Chapter 4 Acknowledging Doubts, Limitations, and Failures 55 Chapter 5 Clients as Teachers: Reciprocal Effects and Influences 73 Chapter 6 Making Sense of What You Do as a Therapist 85 Part II Taking Care of Yourself 115 Chapter 7 Addressing Countertransference and Other Personal Reactions 117 Chapter 8 Avoiding and Countering Burnout 143 Chapter 9 Travel That Can Change Your Life 151 Chapter 10 Building and Maintaining a Support System 161 Part III Practicing What You Preach 173 Chapter 11 Accessing More Fun and Joy From Therapeutic Work 175 Chapter 12 Promoting Creative Breakthroughs 183 About the Author 197