Professional Well-Being

Reviews / Votes

Professional Well-Being: Enhancing Wellness
Among
Psychiatrists, Psychologists, and Mental
Health Clinicians is an
excellent resource for mapping out wellness throughout one's career as
a
clinician. The book begins with the stressors and
mental health
concerns that arise early in training
as a medical student and continues
on the path
through graduate residency training and throughout various
stages of the clinician's career. The
chronological and developmental
nature of how
wellness is discussed is very helpful and
relatable.
There is also substantial focus on wellness
and
nonclinical aspects of taking care of one's mental
health as
well as more clinical approaches, which
creates a balanced perspective.
For example, the
authors emphasize mentorship, informal consultation,
and various lifestyle approaches as nonclinical ways to promote wellness.
Considerable
attention is devoted to the clinical sequalae experienced
by clinicians, including burnout, depressive
symptoms, and suicidal
thoughts. Sufficient attention is also given to the potentially
deleterious
impact a lack of well-being in a clinician can have
on
patient/client care.
Some of the strengths of Professional
Well-Being
are the details that encourage the reader to
think
critically about the complexity of treating mental
health
issues among clinicians. For example, the
chapter on considerations for
providing care to fellow
clinicians is helpful as it provides details on
ethical
considerations, flexibility in scheduling, and how
to
approach therapy without making assumptions that
could interfere
with the therapeutic process. Another
chapter focuses on building
support within systems,
highlighting some of the unique challenges (eg,
isolation, lack of autonomy) that may arise depending
on the setting
where the clinician works, such as
private practice, hospital, or school
system. The
chapter focusing on stressors associated with
various
career milestones is also quite helpful and encourages
clinicians to think about wellness over the
course of their entire
training and career.
Other strengths of this book include the
broad
range of interventions discussed. The chapters
focusing on
wellness and self-care highlight a number
of useful approaches,
including energy management,
time in nature, and mindfulness. Engagement
in
health-promoting behaviors, such as nutrition, exercise, sleep, and
social connectedness, are addressed.
However, the book also discusses
the point when
mental health needs reach a higher threshold, and
it
covers topics related to impairment and recovery.
This book will
be appealing to clinicians in the
mental health field (eg,
psychiatrists, psychiatric
nurse practitioners, psychologists, mental
health
counselors, and clinical social workers). I think the
book
could offer benefit to an even broader readership, such as family
physicians, internists, or those
who practice lifestyle medicine and who
treat a high
volume of patients with mental health issues.
Questions
and vignettes throughout the book make
the chapters more experiential.
From my perspective, this book could have been strengthened by
including
even more self-disclosures and personal
case examples. The preface
starts with salient examples that are extremely relatable to
clinicians
practicing in the mental health field and more of
such
examples throughout the later chapters would
have been helpful.
In
summary, Professional Well-Being: Enhancing
Wellness Among
Psychiatrists, Psychologists, and
Mental Health Clinicians is a great
resource for
clinicians. I recommend reading it early
during
training because many of the resources and strategies described
are preventive and promote positive
mental health. However, it is
applicable to clinicians at any level including those who are
more
advanced in the profession. The focus of the book on
well-being
is especially timely as the COVID-19
pandemic continues. COVID and the
associated loss
and uncertainty have created more demand and
need
for mental health care which in turn creates
increased stress, greater
work demands, and risk of
burnout for providers. This book is a great
reminder
to all clinicians-especially those treating patients
and
clients with mental health concerns-not to
forget about their own
wellness and to make it
a priority so that they may provide the best
care
possible. -- Katherine Daly, PhD * Journal pf Psychiatric Practice *