Customer Reviews

Help for the Helper: The Psychophysiology of Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma

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I read Help for the Helper cover to cover as soon as it arrived and all I can say is WOW and THANK YOU!! This is a book that addresses the needs of helping professionals--all sorts! Babette Rothschild begins the book with a preface on "Common Sense;" something we all need for taking care of ourselves (and our clients, for that matter). She's become a kind of champion of Common Sense in psychology and I'm glad to see her apply this important life-tool to the self-care of professionals. Her three central chapters begin with theory of neurophysiology: on Empathy, Arousal and Clear Thinking. She then goes on to outline things we can easily do to combat the consequences of our work and avoid burnout, vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue. Though the book examples are pointed to psychotherapists, the theory and the exercises will be useful to anyone (like me) in the helping professions. One thing that stands out is that she underscores us each finding the tools that help us best. She offers expert advice without having to be "the" expert. Consistent with her advocacy of common sense, she knows that each professional has to find his or her optimal combination of resources. For those who are interested in neurophysiology, this book covers cutting edge theories and research, including the recent discovery of mirror neurons. For the psychotherapist, sections on countertransference and projective identification offer a fresh view on these core concepts. I believe that anyone in the helping professions, including those who pitch in following disasters, will find this book to be a huge help for their own well-being.

this is an excellent resource book both for personal as well as professional reasons. i wish this book was available 30 + years ago when I started my journey of helping others. this book should be included into the required reading of any psych/counseling curriculum.

I am so glad I was assigned this book in social work school. I experienced compassion fatigue shortly before reading this book after witnessing a particularly traumatic hospitalization. The book superbly described to me what I was experiencing and made me more at ease. I already meditate, but the book has that and other excellent self-care suggestions that all in the helping professions should be aware of.

My problem with this book is that it could have been three times shorter. I agree with one of the reviewers that it is way too heavy on a physiology of empathy, but I do not have a problem learning about neurological aspects of interpersonal experience in therapy as long as they are concise and fit in the context of a practical help. My major dissatisfaction with this book is that even practical solutions that the author is offering seem to be not practical at all. I'd much rather learn about some general strategies for recognizing the upcoming problem from the empathetic involvement with clients at early stages of therapy and some general criteria for making a decision about either continuing to work with them or referring them out. I don't think that all those tedious exercises that the author suggests really help one cover oneself with a protective blanket and make them invulnerable to a "compassion fatigue". Don't know. May be they could help some, but they certainly wouldn't help me. Last, but not least, as I mentioned in the beginning, the redundancy in this book is very annoying. The ideas that the author presents are great and make perfect sense, but, my God, why does she need to repeat the same point over and over again in a thousand of different ways! F.i, when she talks about mimicking and describes the whole history, physiology and nuerobiology of this behavior, the main point that she is trying to convey is that we all mimick other people and that it is a natural human way of interacting with others. Why not just say so and use two pages to communicate this point instead of 50?

I made a hasty decision to buy this book based on the title and a friend's recommendation, because I was looking for "help for the helper." Unfortunately, it turns out to be heavy on the psychophysiology of trauma and attachment--which I'm already familiar with--and light on the help. If you're looking for a readable review of the science, you'll enjoy this book. If you're looking for practical solutions, I suggest you look elsewhere. What there is seems obvious and not particularly new.

This book is just fabulous. I found it to be packed full of easy to read, easy to understand tips for those working with traumatised clients in their workplace.
The book is well set out and is full of practical strategies to apply whilst working with clients. It also gives a thorough overview about trauma and
how it effects the body and how vicarious trauma occurs. Clear case studies help one to fully understand how the strategies work.
I found I was on the brink of burnout and the useful easy to
apply ideas in this book made a huge difference in managing the symptoms of vicarious trauma.
It gave me skills I will continue to use for many years to come.
I'd highly recommend this one.