The Therapist's Workbook: Self-Assessment, Self-Care, and Self-Improvement Exercises for Mental Health Professionals

A Guide for Self-Reflection, Growth, and Change

Forbidden feelings, secret fears, stress, burnout-these are issues that many behavioral health care professionals treat in their clients everyday. But when it's the clinician who is overwhelmed with these issues, there is often no one-and nowhere to turn to. Untreated, these issues can affect therapists' ability to treat their clients effectively and put unneeded stress on their personal relationships. Based on the best-selling book On Being a Therapist, this much-needed workbook nourishes and challenges psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other counselors, guiding them gently on a journey of self-reflection and renewal. Jeffery Kottler's well-conceived guide offers behavioral health care professionals a concrete forum to address the crucial daily and long-term issues that inevitably arise in their work.

To help clinicians help themselves, Kottler has filled this hands-on guide with self-assessment exercises and activities-all designed to facilitate candid self-expression, growth, and change. Special attention is paid to potentially career threatening issues, such as sexual attraction to a client, fear of failure, loss of confidence, and the financial stress and loss of autonomy that many clinicians experience as a result of managed care and its constraints.

By actively engaging in the workbook activities and keeping a weekly journal, readers will come away with renewed motivation, energy, and creativity as clinicians, as well as a valuable written record of personal growth and reflection.