Trauma Stewardship, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky
Trauma Stewardship, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Trauma Stewardship
An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others

Author: Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, Connie Burk

Narrator: Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, Jon Conte

Unabridged: 8 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ascent Audio

Published: 05/04/2009


Synopsis

This beloved bestseller-over 180,000 copies sold-has helped caregivers worldwide keep themselves emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and physically healthy in the face of the sometimes overwhelming traumas they confront every day.

A longtime trauma worker, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky offers a deep and empathetic survey of the often-unrecognized toll taken on those working to make the world a better place. We may feel tired, cynical, or numb or like we can never do enough. These, and other symptoms, affect us individually and collectively, sapping the energy and effectiveness we so desperately need if we are to benefit humankind, other living things, and the planet itself.

In Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way. Lipsky offers a variety of simple and profound practices, drawn from modern psychology and a range of spiritual traditions, that enable us to look carefully at our reactions and motivations and discover new sources of energy and renewal. She includes interviews with successful trauma stewards from different walks of life and even uses New Yorker cartoons to illustrate her points.

"We can do meaningful work in a way that works for us and for those we serve," Lipsky writes. "Taking care of ourselves while taking care of others allows us to contribute to our societies with such impact that we will leave a legacy informed by our deepest wisdom and greatest gifts instead of burdened by our struggles and despair."

Reviews

Goodreads review by zara on February 03, 2020

really good, helpful tips about keeping yourself sustainable for the work. one enormous gap is that it doesn't distinguish between helping professions and conflates really harmful professions (child welfare worker and law enforcement officer) with all other kinds of helping professions. seems to lac......more

Goodreads review by Tinea on April 12, 2014

I brought this book with me to the Central African Republic, and read it by headlamp in a dark room after they shut the generator off for the night each night over about a week. I started the book about 3 weeks after I arrived in this northwestern town comprised of burned and knocked down houses, em......more

Goodreads review by lezhypatia on August 15, 2023

I work in abortion care. So much of the time, it fucking sucks. I hear women’s pain every day— inflicted on them by their partners, by their state laws, by their families, by their religions, by strangers, by the protesters that ambush them outside of our clinic. Then I talk them through the pain th......more

Goodreads review by Israel on July 16, 2018

Helpful reminders and gives a general place to start. Doesn't go too deep into the how to take care of oneself part especially from an intersectional lens. Part of the book is like a white woman (assuming identity) doing lots of learning from POC and publishing a book with her findings. Learned that......more

Goodreads review by Leah on February 17, 2013

unpopular opinion on this book, apparently, but i found it a very trite read that did not exactly act as a guide for caring for the self while caring for others. it's a compilation of stories about various fields that are hard to connect to if you don't work in them, some new agey advice, quotes fro......more