When Professionals Weep: Emotional and Countertransference Responses in Palliative and End-of-Life Care

When Professionals Weep speaks to the humbling and often transformational moments that clinicians experience in their careers as caregivers and healers―moments when it is often hard to separate the influence of our own emotional responses and worldviews from the patient’s or family’s. When ProfessionalsWeep addresses these poignant moments―when the professional's personal experiences with trauma, illness, death, and loss can subtly, often stealthily, surface and affect the helping process. This edition, like the first, both validates clinicians’ experiences and also helps them process and productively address compassion fatigue, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress.

New material in the second edition includes increased emphasis on the burgeoning fields of hospice and palliative care, organizational countertransference, mindfulness, and compassionate practice. It includes thought-provoking cases, self-assessments, and exercises that can be used on an individual, dyadic, or group basis. This volume is an invaluable handbook for practitioners in the fields of medicine, mental health, social work, nursing, chaplaincy, the allied health sciences, psychology, and psychiatry.

Renee S. Katz, PhD, FT, is a licensed psychologist, board-certified diplomate in clinical social work, and fellow in thanatology. A clinician, author, and trainer, she has worked with the dying, the bereaved, and those living with serious illness for more than 30 years.

Therese A. Johnson, LMHC, NCC, is a psychotherapist who has worked in the field of end-of-life care, grief counseling, and traumatic loss for 20 years. She currently serves on the End-of-Life Coalition Committee of the Washington State Medical Association.