ABSTRACT

When Professionals Weep speaks to the humbling and often transformational moments that clinicians experience in their careers as caregivers and healers—moments when it is often hard to separate the influence of our own emotional responses and worldviews from the patient’s or family’s. When Professionals Weep addresses these poignant moments—when the professional's personal experiences with trauma, illness, death, and loss can subtly, often stealthily, surface and affect the helping process. This edition, like the first, both validates clinicians’ experiences and also helps them process and productively address compassion fatigue, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress.

New material in the second edition includes increased emphasis on the burgeoning fields of hospice and palliative care, organizational countertransference, mindfulness, and compassionate practice. It includes thought-provoking cases, self-assessments, and exercises that can be used on an individual, dyadic, or group basis. This volume is an invaluable handbook for practitioners in the fields of medicine, mental health, social work, nursing, chaplaincy, the allied health sciences, psychology, and psychiatry.

part I|8 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|6 pages

When Our Personal Selves Influence Our Professional Work

An Introduction to Emotions and Countertransference in Palliative and End-of-Life Care

part II|56 pages

Special Issues in Palliative and End-of-Life Care

chapter 3|13 pages

Risking Connection

Spirituality in Palliative and End-of-Life Care

chapter 4|11 pages

Client, Clinician, and Supervisor

The Dance of Parallel Process

part III|60 pages

Specific Populations and Settings

chapter 7|13 pages

Torture, Execution, and Abandonment

The Hospitalized Terminally Ill and Countertransference

chapter 9|8 pages

Professionalism and Our Humanity

Working With Children in Palliative and End-of-Life Care

chapter 10|13 pages

Ghosts in the Consulting Room

Bereavement, Grief, and the Therapist

part IV|50 pages

Social, Legal, Ethical, and Organizational Influences

chapter 11|10 pages

Prisms of the Heart

The Journey of Palliative Care

chapter 12|15 pages

The Seduction of Autonomy

Countertransference and Physician Aid in Dying

chapter 13|9 pages

The Desire to Die

Voices From the Trenches

chapter 14|14 pages

Futility and Beneficence

Where Ethics and Countertransference Intersect in Palliative and End-of-Life Care

part V|34 pages

Implications for Practice

part VI|16 pages

Conclusion

chapter 19|14 pages

The Journey Inside

Examining Countertransference and Its Implications for Practice in Palliative and End-of-Life Care

part VII|8 pages

Epilogue

chapter 20|6 pages

Living Every Minute