Why Cope When You Can Heal?
How Healthcare Heroes of COVID-19 Can Recover from PTSD
- Counseling, Grief & Mental Health
- Publisher: Harper Horizon (HarperCollins Focus)
- Published: 2020
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Publisher's Description
Why Cope When You Can Heal? is an essential resource for doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other healthcare professionals—and the leaders who support them—as they navigate the traumatic stress they have experienced and continue to face. COVID-19 has traumatized the world—and no group has been more impacted than frontline healthcare workers. They’ve worked without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), witnessed mass death, and been forced to make choices that haunt them. Many have fallen ill, while others have worried endlessly about their own health and that of their loved ones. Additionally, all of this is happening in the context of a divided nation, a struggling industry, and a “just get over it” culture that exacerbates the problems healthcare workers face, while minimizing their suffering. These factors have created the perfect storm for widespread stress, depression, anxiety, and hopelessness—and, increasingly, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Medical doctor and psychiatrist Mark Goulston shares practical, evidence-based techniques and treatments for managing traumatic stress that will fill you with hope and inspiration. In Why Cope When You Can Heal?, you will discover: real-world accounts and experiences from frontline workers; an overview of treatment options; and exercises, tools, and tips that you can use today. This guide will help you—and those you love and support in the COVID-19 battle—begin the process of healing from the inside out and reconnect with the joys and rewards of career and life.
Endorsements (16)
“PRAISE FOR WHY COPE WHEN YOU CAN HEAL? “COVID-19 has asked as much or more of the frontline healthcare worker as nothing before. We were not ready for this and we need help. Goulston and Hendel tell it like it is, providing clear, actionable, and deeply moving advice and tangible tools to ease the pain and prevent the worst. Healing is needed; solutions are at hand.”
“Thank you for writing this extremely important book. Burnout and mental health challenges were already a significant issue for healthcare clinicians before the COVID-19 pandemic. Why Cope When You Can Heal? heightens the reader’s awareness of the additional trauma experienced now by the healthcare workforce and prepares them for the aftermath of COVID-19 and a potential parallel pandemic. The authors also acknowledge the tensions between health and the economy and individual freedom and the common good that are essential to manage in order to achieve a healthy public, a healthy workforce, and a strong economy. This is an important book for healthcare workers and leaders at all levels to read, so the trauma experienced by the healthcare workforce will not be ignored or dismissed, and those impacted will have the best opportunity to heal.”
“The authors have given us an important book to read and understand deeply in the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic and social upheaval. upheaval. We have finally begun to understand the issues of burnout in healthcare professionals, and then we get hit with this challenge. Our ICU and ED professionals choose these areas of focus and have special aptitude and training in taking care of the most complex and precarious patients. After sharing with us the depth of emotion and pain that the professionals endure and deal with daily, the authors then provide strong insights into what the personal experiences and issues are and the extent of damage inflicted. But we are fortunate to then be shown with great clarity the diagnostic nuances, and then provided with proven therapeutics and interventions to provide these courageous and impacted colleagues with plans and pathways to not only survive and improve but even to heal. Thanks so much for writing this important book.”
“The authors have achieved the rare feat of producing brilliant analysis, powerful and readable stories, and emotional engagement in the lives of those who work heroically to restore us and our loved ones to health. This book is a must-read blueprint for how to address an overlooked part of every crisis that strains our healthcare system.”
“Healthcare providers always hold themselves accountable for the welfare of others but sometimes not for the welfare of themselves. This book provides great insights into emotional healing with the goal of not simply recovery but renewal of self and joy.”
“Why Cope When You Can Heal? is going to help lots of people. Thanks to Mark Goulston and Diana Hendel for explaining how PTSD affects healthcare providers and most importantly, how treatment can lead to recovery.”
“As the CEO of an organization that touches almost half the healthcare delivered in the United States, we see the impact of burnout on providers and how COVID-19 has the potential to be the spark that ignites the catastrophic and permanent damage to the emotional well-being of our heroic frontline providers. Why Cope When You Can Heal? simply lays out a path for managing the trauma and is an important work in creating a foundation for healing with more than hope—concrete and practical pathways for recovery.”
“In order to care for others, healthcare providers need to maintain their own health and well-being. This book serves as a powerful blueprint for understanding, preventing, and healing from the traumatic stress unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before this new challenge, the pressures on providers had produced crisis levels of burnout and suicide. In this moment, when it is easy to recognize that providers are heroes who return to the front lines every day, Goulston and Hendel offer a roadmap to empathy and recovery.”
“This quick and easy read will benefit many on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and is an essential addition to any organization looking to help their teams thrive and build resilience in the midst of chronic stress and leadership burnout.”
“This is the book we as clinicians need right now. Mark Goulston and Diana Hendel have articulated both the problem and solution for something we all realize: namely, that the pandemic is a human catastrophe, and that we need to help beyond just praise for the frontline heroes. The chapters on recovering from this trauma will save lives. I hope we all read it.”
“This book captures the urgency, humanity, passion, and utter devastation of this moment better than anything I’ve read. And yet, the book is hopeful, pointing to proven strategies that can heal our caregivers and our country and our world.”
“A must-read for every healthcare provider or leader. It not only describes what we on the front lines have been faced with during these chaotic and unprecedented times but, even more importantly, it is filled with hope, inspiration, and lots of practical, evidence-based techniques and treatments for managing traumatic stress.”
“Even prior to COVID-19, physician burnout was a national epidemic, with the highest suicide rate of any profession in the United States. COVID-19 brandished more stress and trauma on physicians, as well as all healthcare workers involved on the front lines of battling this pandemic. This book uniquely captures the raw emotions involved in this moment and offers hope, empathy, inspiration, and constructive solutions on how to heal and not just manage the emotional pain.”
“Everyone knows healthcare workers are tough and resilient, but this pandemic has pushed most of us to the edge. Every nurse—in fact, everyone in healthcare—will benefit from the insights, tools, and support offered in this timely and easy-to-read guidebook.”
“With insight and empathy, Why Cope When You Can Heal? opens the door and shows us a pathway toward much-needed healing. I hope that all organizations add this vital resource to their toolkits of support and guidance for all their employees who have served so well during this horrific time.”
“As a healthcare leader responsible for an organization of more than eighteen thousand healthcare providers and staff members, I care deeply about the emotional well-being of our team. This book is an essential resource for frontline providers and leaders alike, and is a terrific supplement to the programs and services we’ve implemented to help employees navigate the enormous stress of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
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