ABSTRACT
Category A contains four themes that identify stressor areas that are confronted by the participants in their work.
Participants reported an array of issues and events that challenge their sense of wellness. Sometimes, as in the case of a suicidal client, these experiences represented unpredicted critical incidents for the practitioners. Other, less intense events and issues were chronic in nature and occurred on an ongoing basis. Regardless of the specic experience, a commonality that ran through was the participants’ experience of feeling “tapped
TABLE 11.1 Categories and Themes
out” in regard to their level of competency or comfort. One participant discussed the emotional impact of a client who committed suicide during a hospitalization.*
I know that she ended up in the hospital; I arranged it. … So I took care of her safety, I felt. And I don’t know what the heck they did; she was suicidal, and they weren’t watching her, and she hung herself. And it was really hard; I just felt heartbroken, and I was so pissed at the psychiatrist.
