End-of-life care (EOL) is a specialised area of work that crosses a number of academic and professional disciplines, including social work, counselling, hospice, physical medicine, geriatrics, nursing, psychology, and clerical work. Professionals who work in EOL have often had deeply moving personal experiences with trauma, death, and loss in their own lives, and almost inevitably bring their own histories, memories, notions, and assumptions to their work. These countertransference responses can be both complex and subtle. This book contains an eclectic group of leaders in the field of death, dying, and bereavement, addressing the issues surrounding the intersection of the personal and the professional in the unique context of end-of-life care.
Contents: "Worden," Foreword. When Our Personal Selves Influence Our Professional Work. Suffering and the Caring Professional. Caregiving of the Soul: Spirituality at the End of Life. The Seduction of Autonomy: Countertransference and Assisted Suicide. Futility and Beneficence: Where Ethics and Countertransference Intersect. Client, Clinician and Supervisor: The Dance of Parallel Process at the End of Life. The Influence of Culture and Ethnicity on End-of-Life Care. Torture, Execution and Abandonment: The Hospitalized Terminally Ill. Surviving the Holocaust Only to Face Death Again. The Horror and Helplessness of Violent Death. Professionalism and Our Humanity: Working with Children at the End of Life. When the Face Across the Room Reflects My Own. Before and After My Fiancee's Death. Complex Bonds: A Personal-Professional Narrative. The Respectful Death Model: Difficult Conversations at the End of Life. Emotional Barriers to Discussing Advanced Directives. A Group Intervention to Process and Examine Countertransference at the End of Life. The Journey Inside: Countertransference and its Implications for Practice in End-of-Life Care.
