Professional Well-Being

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 Practi