ABSTRACT
Professional resilience is essential for social workers and other health professionals who, on an almost daily basis, expose themselves to their clients’ and colleagues’ life stresses while also managing their own. The development of professional resilience starts with cultivating a mindfulness of the state energy and information flow within and between one’s mind, body and relationships (Baldini et al. 2014; McGarrigle and Walsh 2011; Shier and Graham 2010). Mindfulness sheds light on areas of this mindȔbodyȔrelationship triangle of wellbeing (Siegel 2010) that requires healing through targeted self-care strategies. Without mindfulness social workers leave themselves vulnerable to the negative effects of stress and trauma, potentially, transferring those effects onto their clients and colleagues (Epstein and Krasner 2013; Pidgeon et al. 2014; Thomas and Otis 2010). The aim in this chapter is to discuss the role and benefit of mindfulness in the development and maintenance of professional resilience with a particular focus on the links between the mind, body and relationships.
