Professional Well-Being

Professional Well-Being: Enhancing Wellness
AmongPsychiatrists, Psychologists, and Mental
Health Clinicians is anexcellent resource for mapping out wellness throughout one’s career asa
clinician. The book begins with the stressors and
mental healthconcerns that arise early in training
as a medical student and continueson the path
through graduate residency training and throughout variousstages of the clinician’s career. The
chronological and developmentalnature of how
wellness is discussed is very helpful andrelatable.
There is also substantial focus on wellnessand
nonclinical aspects of taking care of one’s mental
health aswell 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 experiencedby clinicians, including burnout, depressive
symptoms, and suicidalthoughts. Sufficient attention is also given to the potentiallydeleterious
impact a lack of well-being in a clinician can have
onpatient/client care.
Some of the strengths of ProfessionalWell-Being
are the details that encourage the reader tothink
critically about the complexity of treating mental
healthissues among clinicians. For example, the
chapter on considerations forproviding care to fellow
clinicians is helpful as it provides details onethical
considerations, flexibility in scheduling, and howto
approach therapy without making assumptions that
could interferewith the therapeutic process. Another
chapter focuses on buildingsupport within systems,
highlighting some of the unique challenges (eg,isolation, lack of autonomy) that may arise depending
on the settingwhere the clinician works, such as
private practice, hospital, or schoolsystem. The
chapter focusing on stressors associated withvarious
career milestones is also quite helpful and encouragesclinicians to think about wellness over the
course of their entiretraining and career.
Other strengths of this book include thebroad
range of interventions discussed. The chapters
focusing onwellness and self-care highlight a number
of useful approaches,including energy management,
time in nature, and mindfulness. Engagementin
health-promoting behaviors, such as nutrition, exercise, sleep, andsocial connectedness, are addressed.
However, the book also discussesthe point when
mental health needs reach a higher threshold, andit
covers topics related to impairment and recovery.
This book willbe appealing to clinicians in the
mental health field (eg,psychiatrists, psychiatric
nurse practitioners, psychologists, mentalhealth
counselors, and clinical social workers). I think the
bookcould offer benefit to an even broader readership, such as familyphysicians, internists, or those
who practice lifestyle medicine and whotreat a high
volume of patients with mental health issues.
Questionsand vignettes throughout the book make
the chapters more experiential.From my perspective, this book could have been strengthened by
includingeven more self-disclosures and personal
case examples. The prefacestarts with salient examples that are extremely relatable toclinicians
practicing in the mental health field and more of
suchexamples throughout the later chapters would
have been helpful.
Insummary, Professional Well-Being: Enhancing
Wellness AmongPsychiatrists, Psychologists, and
Mental Health Clinicians is a greatresource for
clinicians. I recommend reading it earlyduring
training because many of the resources and strategies describedare preventive and promote positive
mental health. However, it isapplicable to clinicians at any level including those who aremore
advanced in the profession. The focus of the book on
well-beingis especially timely as the COVID-19
pandemic continues. COVID and theassociated loss
and uncertainty have created more demand and
needfor mental health care which in turn creates
increased stress, greaterwork demands, and risk of
burnout for providers. This book is a greatreminder
to all clinicians—especially those treating patients
andclients with mental health concerns—not to
forget about their ownwellness and to make it
a priority so that they may provide the bestcare
possible.

Grace W. Gengoux, Ph.D., BCBA-D, is a ClinicalAssociate Professor
in the Department of Psychiatry and BehavioralSciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford,California.

Sanno E. Zack, Ph.D., is a Clinical AssociateProfessor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at theStanford University School of Medicine in Stanford,California.

Jennifer L. Derenne, M.D., is a ClinicalAssociate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciencesat the Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford,California.

Athena Robinson, Ph.D., is Chief ClinicalOfficer at Woebot Labs, Inc. in San Francisco, California.

Laura B.Dunn, M.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry andBehavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine inStanford, California.

Laura Weiss Roberts, M.D., M.A., isChairman and Katharine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick MemorialProfessor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences atStanford University School of Medicine; Editor-in-Chief of the journalAcademic Medicine; and Editor-in-Chief, Books, at American PsychiatricAssociation Publishing in Washington, D.C.

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