Therapists and counselors often ask their clients how they are taking care of themselves. It’s an important part of therapy.
The big question is — How are therapists taking care of themselves? Are they doing for themselves what they expect their clients to do? Many therapists often put themselves last on their list of getting needs met.
Below is a list of books that they recommend in the training so that therapists understand the dangers of what can happen if they don’t take care of themselves like: compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, and burn out.
Keeping oneself in balance is essential and key to being a therapist who stays in the field for years and feel good about what they are doing. We hope these books will be useful in finding ways of making self-care an essential part of your practice as a therapist.
- Compassion Fatigue: Coping With Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder In Those Who Treat The Traumatized (Routledge Psychosocial Stress Series) ~ Charles R. Figley
- Treating Compassion Fatigue (Routledge Psychosocial Stress Series) ~ Charles R. Figley
- The Compassion Fatigue Workbook: Creative Tools for Transforming Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Traumatization (Psychosocial Stress Series) ~ Françoise Mathieu
- Trauma and the Therapist: Countertransference and Vicarious Traumatization in Psychotherapy with Incest Survivors ~ Laurie Anne Pearlman
- Help for the Helper: The Psychophysiology of Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma (Norton Professional Books) ~ Babette Rothschild
- Transforming the Pain: A Workbook on Vicarious Traumatization (Norton Professional Books) ~ Karen W. SAAKVITNE
- Secondary Traumatic Stress: Self-Care Issues for Clinicians, Researchers, and Educators ~ B. Hudnall Stamm
We hope these books will be helpful in developing your own self-care plan as a mental health professional.
Related EMDR Therapy Books
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