Welcome to The Well Mind Podcast. I’m your host Dr. Ben Kohls. This is episode number 11 and the first solo show for me. Today’s topics have been and continue to be critically important to me. As a mental health counselor, I am constantly trying to understand how people can persist, learn, and grow in the face of adversity. This has led me to seek out as much knowledge as possible about resiliency and apply that knowledge in the counseling room, supervision, and educational presentations. I have focused specifically on resiliency with those in education and helping fields. This includes my work with nurses, physicians, social workers, counselors, pastors, and teachers. Yet, caregiving is not exclusively a professional role, but is often a personal role that we take on at specific times in life. These moments can include caring for an aging parent or sibling, raising a child with special needs, or supporting a spouse with a chronic physical or psychological condition. Regardless of whether that caregiving is personal or professional, it is compassionate work that requires a great deal of empathy from us. In this episode we will focus our time together on deepening your understanding of compassion fatigue resilience. I’ve also dedicated a portion of this episode to talk specifically about mindfulness and how this form of self-care can further promote your resilience. All of the skills and resources that I reference in the show are linked in the show notes that you can find through the app you use to listen to the podcast.
References from Episode 11
Ludick and Figley article on Compassion Fatigue Resilience https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2016-53576-001.html
Life Stress Test https://www.compassionfatigue.org/pages/lifestresstest.pdf
How stressed are you? https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/stress-test/
Self-Care Assessment https://www.therapistaid.com/worksheets/self-care-assessment.pdf
