The combination of an art therapist's personal trauma with secondary traumatic stress can lead to compassion fatigue. Inspired by narrative art therapy methods, the author engaged in memoir writing, art responses, authentic movement, and public exhibition. This creative life review identified ways in which her nervous system responses to clients'…

This report describes results from a survey designed to assess students' emotions and behaviors prior to and following their participation in targeted grief support counseling.

The loss of a client to suicide is a painful personal and professional experience for mental health providers. Whether trainee or experienced professional, the affected clinician often reports feeling overwhelmed and unprepared for the experience of client suicide, together with significant emotional distress and diminished work performance. In…

The burgeoning recognition of the influence of religion and spirituality in personal, cultural, and political affairs has spurred discussions regarding the need for social work practice to be sensitive and responsive to the presence of spirituality in the lives of clients. However, though attending properly to clients' coping styles involving…

Describes a workshop on burnout especially designed for telephone counselors. Workshops help counselors explore the personal, professional, and organizational factors that are important in understanding and coping with this burnout. (Author/RC)

When interventions with youth are not successful, it is easy to point fingers of blame. Professionals may see parents as uninvolved while parents feel unsupported. Such polarization leads to adversarial relationships that undermine parenting, education, and treatment. This article considers common defensive reactions of parents and professionals…

Examines the experience of four female therapists working with male sex offenders on an outpatient basis, and the variety of difficulties that they faced in maintaining care of the perpetrators. Four general themes emerged: developing a positive view of perpetrators, managing client beliefs and behaviors, controlling personal reactivity, and the…

This book is a collection of essays published in a column in "Counseling Today", the newspaper of the American Counseling Association. These essays are written by various counselors who relate their successes, challenges, doubts, and failures; they describe some of the personal issues involved in counseling practice that are rarely discussed.…