Beyond Self-Care for Helping Professionals is an innovative guide to professional self-care focused not just on avoiding the consequences of failing to take care of oneself, but on optimal health and positive psychology. This new volume builds upon the Expressive Therapies Continuum to introduce the Life Enrichment Model, a strengths-based model that encourages mindful participation in a broad array of enriching experiences. By enabling therapists and other Helping Professionals to develop a rich emotional, intellectual, and creative foundation to their lives and clinical practices, this guide sets a new standard for self-care in the helping professions.

Practicing What You Preach: Self-Care for Helping Professionals assists readers in recovering from the strains and demands of working within the helping professions, not through reminders to take a break or a deep breath, but through the recognition that self-care requires a constant commitment to addressing larger and more complex issues that can lead to exhaustion, depression, and burnout. The book reviews the nature and manifestations of acute and chronic compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and related issues, examining the origins of these difficulties. It explains why traditional, short-term ideas of self-care usually don't work very well, for very long, and why it's so challenging to begin and maintain healthy habits. The text helps readers recognize and confront complex issues-- dysfunctional organizational climates, neglectful or abusive supervisors, overloaded schedules, unresolved personal issues, interpersonal conflicts, and unhealthy lifestyles--and then move toward productive, healthy, long-term resolutions. Written with empathy and deep understanding, Practicing What You Preach is well suited for courses in social work, counseling, family therapy, psychology, human services, health professions, and other related fields, as well as a guide for practitioners. Jeffrey A. Kottler, Ph.D. is one of the most prominent authors in the fields of psychology, health, and education, having written over 100 books across a broad range of topics. He is professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton and resident scholar at the Alliance for Multicultural Community Service in Houston, Texas, where he works on issues related to refugee mental health and wellness.

Why are so many in the helping professions perceived as lacking idealism or commitment? Beyond Burnout, based on a unique, in-depth, longitudinal study, explores the source of this problem. Professionals describe in their own words what happened to them when their idealism collided with the realities of their work.

Complete Self-Care: Transformation through Yoga and Beyond provides therapists, educators, social work practitioners, medical professionals, and students alike with a deep understanding of self-care and the tools to develop an individual self-care plan based upon their personal values, desires, and necessities. The book emphasizes the critical need for those in helping professions to regularly practice self-care in order to provide superior treatment and support to their clients and patients. Though the practice of self-care includes daily tasks such as sleeping and eating regular meals, this book demonstrates to readers that a comprehensive and holistic self-care program also requires deep introspection and personal evaluation. The text invites readers to examine their personal history, coping strategies, cultural and spiritual influences, and more to uncover how their experiences and perceptions shape the world around them. Exercises throughout the book encourage readers to consider their early social conditioning and educational experiences, participate in the ancient practice of yoga, unearth their inner power and intention, and more. Informed by contemporary mental health research and intended to help individuals draw from their own experiences to help others, Complete Self-Care is an ideal text for students preparing to enter helping professions and those already in the field who wish to take their personal care to the next level. Dr. Aileen McCabe-Maucher created a free mini-course to introduce instructors to some of the self-care strategies covered in her text. Within the course, Dr. McCabe-Maucher helps you create or assess your personal self-care plan, teaches two distinct breathing exercises for reducing stress, and speaks to ways in which you can incorporate or teach self-care strategies within the classroom. Sign up for the course and then access the content in the My Library section of the site at: https://www.draileenmccabemaucher.com/offers/VcSAUZho

Self-care is critical for effective and ethical counseling practice and this inspirational book offers diverse, realistic perspectives on how to achieve work–life balance and personal wellness from graduate school through retirement. In addition to the authors’ unique perspectives as professionals at different stages of their careers, guest contributors—ranging from graduate students, to new professionals, to seasoned counselors—share their experiences and thoughts about self-care, including what challenges them most. Both personal and conversational in tone, this book will help you to create your own practical self-care action plan through reflection on important issues, such as managing stress, establishing personal and professional boundaries, enhancing relationships, and finding meaning in life.

Moving Beyond Assessment: A Practical Guide for Beginning Helping Professionals is a text designed to help beginning professionals from social work, nursing, psychology, counseling, and other related disciplines navigate the early stages of working with clients in a variety of settings. The authors are experienced clinicians, supervisors, and professors who have trained hundreds of graduate students to learn how to assess, intervene, and evaluate their work with clients. In addition to the direct practice focus of the book, the authors address issues such as self-care, the basics of neurobiology, working with multi-disciplinary teams, evidence-based practice, and supervision. The text has a user-friendly tone and the authors have included numerous practice vignettes and their own personal and professional experiences to exhibit how the content can be applied to real life settings. Beginning practitioners will find tips, tools, resources, and concrete examples they can use to enhance their work with clients and normalize their experiences in the helping field, while learning how to take care of themselves as professionals. This text is an essential guide for anyone who is seeking to become a helping professional.