"In late August 2021 the remnants of Hurricane Ida, by then not even a tropical depression, found its way to New York City and surrounding areas. The storm caused major destruction and loss in the south, particularly Louisiana. However, by the time it moved though New York, there was not much in the way of news about the storm. Still, within a few hours close to 7 inches of rain inundated the area. The rainfall was too much for the saturated ground to absorb, especially in areas below sea level. The quick, intense storm left a great deal of water moving into roadways, filling basements, and even first floors of apartment buildings, single family homes, and places of work and worship. Patio furniture, sports equipment, even cars from backyards and driveways floated down major roads. Hundreds of people lost their homes, close to fifty people lost their lives in a storm that barely was spoken of prior to the event"--
Introduction: Continually Creating New Inner Psychological Space. An Ongoing Process of Mindfulness. 1. Sensing the Dangers: Chronic and Acute Secondary Stress. 2. Enhancing Resiliency: Strengthening One's Own Self-Care Protocol. 3. Replenishing the Self: Solitude, Silence...and Mindfulness. 4. Daily Debriefing: Mindfulness and Positive Psychology as an Integral Part of the Clinician's Ongoing Reflective Process. Epilogue: Clinician. Clinician: An Honorable Profession, a Meaningful Life. References. Appendices. 1-1. Causes for Burnout. 1-2. Daily Burnout: A Sampling of Key Signs and Symptoms.
This book is a concise guide for physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals on understanding acute and chronic secondary stress, developing a personally designed self-care protocol, and strengthening one's inner life. It features a newly developed "Medical-Nursing Professional Secondary Stress Self-Awareness Questionnaire" that can be self-administered.
Written by a veteran clinician for medical practitioners of all disciplines and levels of experience, this concise pocket guide presents a frank discussion about facilitating resiliency in the face of the personal and professional challenges of a medical career. Furthermore, it provides proven techniques and suggestions for stress management aimed at the maintenance of a more successful practice and peaceful life. First defining and elucidating the problems of stress plaguing the field, including burnout, substance abuse and suicide, the bulk of the book presents and discusses ways to combat and master the everyday stress of the "medical marriage," such as engaging in mindfulness training, learning to forgive oneself and others, listening to your own body, utilizing time away from medicine, and performing simple acts of kindness and gratitude. Issues surrounding the inevitability of mistakes, the pursuit of perfectionism, happiness and success are then examined and reflected upon, as are stress management considerations from other cultures and literary sources. Equal parts personal and practical, The Resilient Physician is a must-have for any clinician or medical professional seeking better understanding and outcomes when handling the constant demands of this high-stress - but ultimately rewarding - career.
“Riding the Dragon gives the reader the chance to look for the lessons that are often hidden in our sorrows.”—Goodreads reviewer Twenty years and 70,000 copies after it was first released, Riding the Dragon—by popular author, speaker, and psychologist Robert J. Wicks—continues to help thousands each year to confront the “dragons” of stress, discouragement, burnout, and unexpected change that everyone struggles with in their daily lives. Instead of pretending these difficulties don’t exist or trying to remove them entirely, Wicks offers ten lessons to help us face them, overcome them, and grow from them. These simple yet profound lessons draw on the wisdom of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions as well as Wicks’s experience as a psychologist, and include pairing clarity with kindness, seeking perspective daily, and building a barrier of simplicity. Riding the Dragon is a concise, compassionate, and knowledgeable guide for anyone experiencing or supporting someone facing personal or professional challenges. This twentieth anniversary edition features a new preface from the author, highlighting how Riding the Dragon is, perhaps now more than ever, an indispensable spiritual and psychological companion for all of us who are yearning for our lives to be transformed.
Stress is a fact of modern life. And as more and more people face greater financial insecurity, longer work hours, and the increasingly complex personal and social demands of our fast-paced, multi-tasking, high-tech lifestyle, finding healthy ways to handle stress is more important than ever. In Bounce: Living the Resilient Life, Robert Wicks shows you not just how to manage stress, but how to transform stressful situations into opportunities to live a more meaningful, self-aware, and compassionate life. Wicks makes available to everyone techniques he has used for over 30 years in helping physicians, nurses, psychotherapists, educators, social workers, ministers, and relief workers not only survive but flourish in highly stressful occupations. You'll learn a wide range of methods--normally reserved for those in helping and healing professions--to help you bounce back from stress and live life to the fullest. Bounce shows you how to: · Recognize the insidious nature of denial and avoidance as responses to stress · Employ psychologically powerful approaches to self-awareness · Improve self-talk through the use of cognitive behavioral principles · Apply daily-debriefing techniques · Utilize a structured reflection guide to uncover areas that require special attention · Incorporate silence, solitude, and mindfulness into daily life · Stop the drain of valuable emotional energy caused by toxic life situations and unexamined attitudes and beliefs · And much more Most important, Bounce helps you develop your own self-care protocol and personal renewal program, based on an honest assessment of your needs, life situation, and habitual ways of dealing--or failing to deal--with stress. Insightful, practical, and filled with wise guidance, Bounce shows us all how to live with greater resilience in a world that grows more stressful by the day.
One of the greatest gifts helping professionals can share with others is a sense of their own peace. However, retaining and renewing a sense of a healthy perspective requires not only self-care strategies, but also an awareness of basic profound, yet simple, wisdom themes. The Inner Life of the Counselor presents classic and contemporary wisdom that examines and explores each of these themes in a way that both professional and non-professional helpers will find revealing and meaningful in understanding their own journey. Informed by the author's over thirty years of experience as a therapist, mentor, and clinical supervisor of professional helpers?as well as by his expertise in resiliency and prevention of secondary stress?The Inner Life of the Counselor thoughtfully looks at those elements that encourage sustained personal growth and professional development, such as self-care, stress management, and mindfulness. Lively, practical, and marked by an elegant sense of simplicity, this nurturing book demonstrates how exploring the inner life can lead counselors to new wisdom and inner peace?not only for themselves but also for those who come to them for relief and insight. It is an invitation to pause, reflect, renew, and navigate one of contemporary society's most challenging yet rewarding professions.
This repackaged edition of Dr. Robert J. Wicks's most popular book will revitalize his message of ordinariness, self-esteem, and friendship for a new generation of spiritual seekers. Infusing the wisdom of ancient and contemporary Christians with his own vast experience as a parent, teacher, and counselor, Dr. Wicks demonstrates that the simplicity and openness of truly ordinary people is a meeting place with God. Dr. Wicks's wise guidance includes descriptions of the four types of friends we need for the spiritual journey, principles of self-respect, checklists on openness and listening, skills for stress management, and much more.
In three sectiions that brim with hopefulness--"Praying", "Caring", and "nurturing"--Robert Wicks offers his readers past the age of 50 a gentle prod to discover the riches of this holy time of life. His invitatation is to embrace the "wisdom years.
Caring for our family members, friends, and others is a central part of a rewarding life. For those in healing and helping professions such as medicine, nursing, education, psychotherapy, social work, ministry, and the military, the potential for a meaningful way of being may even become more possible. But, compassion is not easy. At times, concern for others can be personally devastating when we don't possess the right attitude and approach. Reaching out (and reflectively within) without being pulled down requires the wisdom that only arises out of the right combination of humility and knowledge. Night Call offers the stories and principles gleaned over many years of writing and mentoring for those in the helping and healing professions. The stories are offered in ways that foster compassionate caring while encouraging initiative in those who seek to personally deepen and share their lives with others -- especially in times of significant need. With this in mind, Dr. Wicks presents information on: · being a healing presence · mining fruits of the failures all of us must experience at times · the need to enjoy the daily "crumbs of alonetime" · the importance of a spirit of "unlearning" · developing a simple realistic self-care program · valuing informal or formal mentoring · recognizing the "3 calls" to which we must respond to as we psychologically develop · honoring life's most elusive psychological virtue (humility) Purposely brief, the chapters, as well as the sections in the "personal resiliency retreat" section at the end of the book, have as their goal a reconsideration of values, signature strengths, and simple approaches to living a resilient, rewarding life. Rather than presenting new breakthroughs, Night Call is designed to dust off what most of us already know, at some level, so we can freshly view the key approaches and techniques that provide increased psychological self-awareness and a potentially healthier sense of presence to others. The themes offered may have been forgotten, or become undervalued/set aside because of some of society's dysfunctional norms or unhelpful family influences. In response, this simple, countercultural book combines the value of essential self-compassion with caring for others in ways that provide the impetus for further exploration of a fuller narrative for both the readers of this work and unforeseen opportunities as well for those who are fortunate enough to cross their paths.
