The Resilient Clinician

About the Course

One of the greatest gifts persons in the healing and helping professions can share with their colleagues and patients is a sense of their own inner strength.  However, they cannot share what they do not have.  By discussing approaches to acute and chronic secondary stress (the pressures experienced in reaching out to others), Dr. Wicks, the author of The Resilient Clinician, Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice, and Perspective:  The Calm within the Storm, offers insights into how professional caregivers can reach out without being pulled down.  Topics will include:  developing a self-care protocol; maintaining a healthy sense of perspective when faced with the dangers of secondary stress; appreciating the elements within a circle of supportive and challenging friends that professional caregivers need to maintain a balance today; “riding the dragon”:  approaches to fearless self-awareness as a clinician; recognizing and addressing traumatic counter-transference; elements of professional detachment and the necessity of at least a sense of informal “mindfulness” amidst the practice and stresses endemic to contemporary professional caregiving.

Course Objectives

1. Describe secondary stress
2. List 4 different types of friends necessary to remain resilient as well as sensitive to diverse populations
3. Design a self-care protocol
4. Recite at least 3 major dangers to caregiver resiliency
5. Define “mindfulness”

Target Audience

Target audience includes psychologists, social workers, professional counselors, marriage and family therapists, recovery coaches, peer specialists, nurses, nurse practitioners, psychiatrists, and substance abuse counselors for this intermediate level of instruction.

CEs

• 3.0 PCB Approved Education Credits
• 3.0 Continuing Education Credits for License Social Workers, Licensed Professional Counselors, and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists
• 3.0 Continuing Education Credits for Registered Nurses (RN) and Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN)

There is no conflict of interest or commercial support for this program.

All attendees must arrive promptly at the beginning of the training and remain the duration of the training to receive continuing education credits.  Please have license number available when signing in.

Persons with disabilities and special needs are encouraged to contact the registrar for further information.

Robert J. Wicks, PSY.D., has been called to speak calm into chaos by individuals and groups experiencing great stress, anxiety and confusion for over 35 years.  Dr. Wicks received his doctorate in Psychology from Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital, is Professor Emeritus at Loyola University, Maryland, and has taught in universities and professional schools of psychology, medicine nursing, theology, education, and social work.

In the past several years has has spoken on Capitol Hill to Members of Congress and their Chiefs of Staff, at John Hopkins School of Medicine, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the Mayo Clinic, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the Defense Intelligence Agency, at Harvard’s Children’s Hospital and Harvard Divinity School, Yale School of Nursing, Princeton Theological Seminary, and to members of NATO Intelligence Fusion Center in England on his major areas of expertise:  resilience, self-care, and the prevention of secondary stress (the pressures encountered when reaching out to others).  He has also spoken at the Boston Public Library’s commemoration of the Boston Marathon bombing, addressed 10,000 educators in the Air Canada Arena in Toronto, was the opening keynote speaker to 1,500 physicians for the American Medical Directors Association, spoken at the FBI and New York City Police Academies, led a course on resilience in Beirut for relief workers from Aleppo, Syria and addressed caregivers in:  China, Vietnam, India, Thailand, Haiti, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Hungary, Guatemala, Malta, New Zealand, Australia, France, England and South Africa.

In 1994, Dr. Wicks was responsible for the psychological debriefing of relief workers evacuated from Rwanda during their genocide.  In 1993, and again in 2001, he also worked in Cambodia.  During these visits, his work was with professionals from the English-speaking community who were present to help the Khmer people rebuild their nation following years of terror and torture.  In 2006, he also delivered presentations on self-care at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland and Walter Reed Army Hospital to those health care professionals responsible for Iraq and Afghan war veterans evacuated to the U.S. with multiple amputations and severe head injuries.  More recently he addressed the U.S. Army health care professionals returning from Africa where they were assisting during the Ebola crisis.

Dr. Wicks has published over 50 books for both professionals and the general public including the bestselling Riding the Dragon.  Two of his latest books for professionals include:  Overcoming Secondary Stress in Medical and Nursing Practice and The Resilient Clinician.  His books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Polish and Spanish.  In 2006, Dr. Wicks received the first annual Alumni Award for Excellence in Professional Psychology from Widener University and he is also the recipient of the Humanitarian of the Year Award from the American Counseling Association’s Division on Spirituality, Ethics and Religious Values in Counseling.  In the military, he was an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Relevant Resources

• Wicks, R. (2009) Bounce:  Living the Resilient Life (New York: Oxford).  (For General Readership)

• Wicks, R. (2014) Perspective:  The Calm with the Storm (New York: Oxford University Press).  (For General Readership)

• Wicks, R. (2003) Riding the Dragon:  10 Lessons for Inner Strength in Challenging Times (Notre Dame:  Sorin Books).  (For General Readership)

• Wicks, R. (2008) The Resilient Clinician (New York: Oxford).  (For psychotherapists, counselors, and clinical social workers)

• Wicks, R. (2012) The Inner Life of the Counselor (New York: Wiley).  (For psychotherapists, counselors, and social workers)

• Werdel, M. and Wicks, R. (2012) Primer on Posttraumatic Growth (New York: Wiley).  (For psychotherapists, counselors, and social workers)

For more information, contact Karen M. Kern at 215.453.5171 or kkern@pennfoundation.org

If you do not receive the professional benefits described in our program materials or you have some other professional complaint, please let us know in writing within 7 days of the training and we will honor your request for a refund.