Psychological injury has long been recognized as a serious risk to a variety of helping professionals, and the mental health field has responded to this need with a recent explosion of literature addressing the issue. Unfortunately, with such an enormous increase in available information comes additional opportunities for confusion.

The Pain of Helping consolidates this mounting wealth of data and presents coherent chapters covering various constructs of psychological injury, for instance: PTSD, vicarious traumatization, compassion fatigue, acute stress disorder and burnout. Chapter sections discuss how each particular form of psychological injury can uniquely affect different helping professions, such as social workers, first responders, firefighters, nurses, counsellors, and physicians, and each chapter concludes with a comprehensive list of additional resources for further information. This concise, well-organized, timely text is an indispensable tool for anyone involved in the helping professions.