Lying Down In The Ever Falling Snow

First used to describe the weariness the public felt toward media portrayals of societal crises, the term compassion fatigue has been taken up by health professionals to name—along with burnout, vicarious traumatization, compassion stress, and secondary traumatic stress—the condition of caregivers who become “too tired to care.” Compassion, long seen as the foundation of ethical caring, is increasingly understood as a threat to the well-being of those who offer it. Through the lens of hermeneutic phenomenology, the authors present an insider’s perspective on compassion fatigue, its effects on the body, on the experience of time and space, and on personal and professional relationships. Accounts of health professionals, alongside examinations of poetry, images, movies, and literature, are used to explore the notions of compassion, hope, and hopelessness as they inform the meaning of caring work. The authors frame their exposé of compassion fatigue with the very Canadian metaphor of “lying down in the snow.” If suffering is imagined as ever-falling snow, then the need for training and resources for safe journeying in “winter country” becomes apparent. Recognizing the phenomenon of compassion fatigue reveals the role that health services education and the moral habitability of our healthcare environments play in supporting professionals’ ability to act compassionately and to endure.

First used to describe the weariness the public felt toward media portrayals of societal crises, the term compassion fatigue has been taken up by health professionals to name—along with burnout, vicarious traumatization, compassion stress, and secondary traumatic stress—the condition of caregivers who become “too tired to care.” Compassion, long seen as the foundation of ethical caring, is increasingly understood as a threat to the well-being of those who offer it. Through the lens of hermeneutic phenomenology, the authors present an insider’s perspective on compassion fatigue, its effects on the body, on the experience of time and space, and on personal and professional relationships. Accounts of health professionals, alongside examinations of poetry, images, movies, and literature, are used to explore the notions of compassion, hope, and hopelessness as they inform the meaning of caring work. The authors frame their exposé of compassion fatigue with the very Canadian metaphor of “lying down in the snow.” If suffering is imagined as ever-falling snow, then the need for training and resources for safe journeying in “winter country” becomes apparent. Recognizing the phenomenon of compassion fatigue reveals the role that health services education and the moral habitability of our healthcare environments play in supporting professionals’ ability to act compassionately and to endure.

Offering new insight into the pertinence of Simone Weil’s thought, this volume situates her in the Continental discourses which constituted her philosophical background, her milieu, and which frequently reflected her departures from her contemporaries.

Meet the challenges of mental health nursing—in Canada and around the world. Optimized for the unique challenges of Canadian health care and thoroughly revised to reflect the changing field of mental health, Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing for Canadian Practice, 4th Edition, is your key to a generalist-level mastery of fundamental knowledge and skills in mental health nursing. Gain the knowledge you need to deliver quality psychiatric and mental health nursing care to a diverse population. • Discover the biological foundations of psychiatric disorders and master mental health promotion, assessment, and interventions for patients at every age. • Explore current research and key topics as you prepare for the unique realities of Canadian clinical practice. • Gain a deeper understanding of the historical trauma of Aboriginal peoples and its implications for nursing care. • Online Video Series, Lippincott Theory to Practice Video Series: Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing includes videos of true-to-life patients displaying mental health disorders, allowing students to gain experience and a deeper understanding of mental health patients.

This Brief integrates the literature and research on other-oriented hope. It discusses the position of other-oriented hope as one manifestation of the broader attribute of other-interest and argues the importance of other-interest in well-being. The Brief examines definitions and attributes of other-oriented hope, based upon theoretical and empirical understandings of hope more generally. Thereafter it reviews both qualitative and quantitative research findings concerning the occurrence of other-oriented hope in several domains, including other-oriented hope among parents of ill children, other-oriented hope among caregivers and other-oriented hope among the elderly. Several theoretical frameworks for understanding the phenomenon of other-oriented hope are considered, as are the functions of and elements comprising, other-oriented hope. The differentiation of other-oriented hope and related concepts, such as compassion and love, is considered. Finally, the brief examines the application of other-oriented hope to practical work in counselling and caregiving and outlines several directions for future work on other-oriented hope.

As nurses, we hear about mindfulness all the time, but what does that actually mean in practice? In this book readers are invited into conversation to explore how mindfulness influences palliative care nurses’ approaches to caring for themselves and others through experiences of living-dying. Under the guise of stress reduction and self-care, the assumption often made is that mindfulness can smooth out difficult experiences. Instead, the objective of this inquiry is not to bypass the practice of caring in those spaces that are really hard, but to understand how nurses are working directly within them. Calling out from the shadows—and our bodies—the intensity of palliative care nursing practice arises. In this text, a dialogue unfolds of nurses caring in deeply meaningful practice environments while searching for ground that is perpetually shifting, uncertain, and fraught with suffering and strong emotion. Integrating literature across nursing, sociology, and contemplative scholarship, evocative stories from palliative care nurses lead in this conversation—their words in italics—showing how they are guided into action through connection with-in their bodies. At other times, stories show how nurses are taking pause and drawing on various somatic practices to unravel entanglements that touch on their own humanity. These stories also offer insight into how systemic forces, across educational and organizational institutions, are either enhancing or constraining the way nurses engage mindfulness as a relationally embodied ethic of care. This insightful volume is not a how-to guide, rather it is a timely resource exploring approaches for palliative care nurses to care for themselves and others with mindfulness and compassion. Those seeking nuanced perspectives, particularly in relation to embodying mindfulness through suffering and strong emotion, will be drawn to this text. Qualitative researchers studying emotionally sensitive topics may also find inspiration in the narrative, arts-based, and embodied methods that shape this inquiry.

This is a collection of inspirations by a naturalist and lover of nature. They arose from the opportunity to do walks, hikes, runs, and cross country skis during which time was spent sitting alone in silence and stillness in nature. These inspirations describe both what was seen by the eyes and heard by ear and the heart at each location and each has a photo taken at the site where the inspiration occurred. This book is the result of practicing not thinking when alone in nature and instead just observing and listening. The locations are in the tallgrass prairies of the Flint Hills of Kansas and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. This book is created in the hope that others will find inspiration for their own mind and heart in reading it and be inspired to pursue their own encounters with nature, even if through the simplicity of looking out a window. The book title comes from the author's adopted nature name, Falling Snow, and because the inspirations arrived like snow falling.

From The New York Times bestselling author of Prayers for Sale comes the moving and powerful story of a small town after a devastating avalanche, and the life changing effects it has on the people who live there Whiter Than Snow opens in 1920, on a spring afternoon in Swandyke, a small town near Colorado's Tenmile Range. Just moments after four o'clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path including nine young children who are walking home from school. But only four children survive. Whiter Than Snow takes you into the lives of each of these families: There's Lucy and Dolly Patch—two sisters, long estranged by a shocking betrayal. Joe Cobb, Swandyke's only black resident, whose love for his daughter Jane forces him to flee Alabama. There's Grace Foote, who hides secrets and scandal that belies her genteel façade. And Minder Evans, a civil war veteran who considers his cowardice his greatest sin. Finally, there's Essie Snowball, born Esther Schnable to conservative Jewish parents, but who now works as a prostitute and hides her child's parentage from all the world. Ultimately, each story serves as an allegory to the greater theme of the novel by echoing that fate, chance, and perhaps even divine providence, are all woven into the fabric of everyday life. And it's through each character's defining moment in his or her past that the reader understands how each child has become its parent's purpose for living. In the end, it's a novel of forgiveness, redemption, survival, faith and family.