The Nurses' Handbook: How to Survive and Thrive While Caring for Others (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780995459908)

Let me explain why I wrote this book. I work as a hypnotherapist, using a mixture of hypnotherapy, neurolinguistic programming and coaching techniques to help people reach their full potential and optimum wellbeing. I have a pretty good success record with the nurses who come to see me, probably because I know a fair bit about their experiences as I am not new to the world of health care. I was deputy editor of Nursing Standard back in the 1990s and website manager at the Royal College of Nursing in the early part of this century. I have been able to call on the knowledge and networks I had built up in the nursing world to help the nurse clients who now come though my door. This feels like a great way to make a living; I get to spend every day being given insight into other people's lives and helping them change. It is completely fulfilling and makes me very happy. I've been doing this for seven years now. I work mainly in Sheffield, just up the road from four NHS hospitals and very near numerous private hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. That's where things began to change for me. I never planned to specialise in helping nurses when I started on this path, but, given where I practise, it is not surprising that so many of my clients are nurses. As I built up something of a reputation for helping nurses and other health professionals deal with the ups and downs of work and life, I began to focus even more on how the techniques and skills I had gained as a hypnotherapist and as a hypnotherapy supervisor could help nurses achieve optimum career and life satisfaction and well being. Over the years I have acquired a toolkit of helpful techniques, knowledge, stories and research which I give my nurse clients to help with conditions such as stress and burnout. I have also coached nurses who want to take a different career step and helped with specific problems such as bullying at work, making career changes and deciding which field of nursing best suits a particular client.