ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the importance of maintaining healthy patient–practitioner working relationships, and explores ways of avoiding professional burnout. Providing professional care for women who have experienced pregnancy loss can be both highly stressful and extremely rewarding. Offering emotional space to allow women to describe the details of their experience requires an empathy and compassion that is vital for the therapeutic encounter to be successful. The idea of the ‘wounded healer’ dates back to ancient Greek mythology, according to which Chiron, wounded by the poisoned arrow of Heracles and destined to suffer endless pain, taught the healing arts to Asclepius, who became one of the founding fathers of Western medicine. Burnout syndrome is the exhaustion of the body’s normal mechanisms for coping with stress. The best way to prevent burnout is to promote personal and professional well-being at all levels.