Description

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An essential resource for helping professionals, updated for today’s challenges.

Since the publication of the first edition of Help for the Helper in 2006, the world has changed. Significantly. Due to existing and growing threats of war, increasing areas of civil unrest, the COVID-19 pandemic, financial collapse, natural disasters, and more, therapists and other helping professionals now often find themselves in a particularly tricky position: They are struggling to personally cope with traumas and massive stresses that are very similar to those experienced by their clients and others they serve.

To address these unique challenges, this revised and expanded edition now includes guidance for helping clients while maintaining therapists’ own safety and sanity in crisis situations, managing the usual stresses and challenges during normal times, and tips for dealing with trauma when that is not a therapist’s specialty. Topics include the neurophysiology and regulation of arousal, self-care during shared community/world crises, maintaining balance and strength, countertransference, somatic empathy, mirroring and mimicry.

About the Author

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Babette Rothschild, MSW, LCSW is an internationally recognized PTSD specialist and best-selling author of seven books translated into eighteen languages, including her new offerings Help for the Helper Updated + Expanded and the 8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery Workbook. Babette is also the creator and Series Editor of W. W. Norton’s 8 Keys to Mental Health Series. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California.

Praise For…

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This book should be very useful to practicing psychotherapists, social workers, nurses, psychiatrists, and especially those in training for these fields. The variety of skill-building exercises offers help for many issues that arise during training and practice.
— Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic

Written with a lot of common sense, it is easy to read and will be helpful to all therapists, whether they work with trauma and disaster victims or not.
— International Review of Psychiatry

The book is written from a pragmatic, non-spiritual perspective and is a great reminder of the fact that we do need to look after ourselves, as well as giving us a variety of useful strategies to help survive the ups and downs of therapeutic life.
— The Fulcrum

[T]his concise, well-organized book is full of useful ideas and practices for almost anyone who is struggling to take care of a human being in need.
— Greater Good