Awards

• Highly Commended in Wellness & Wellbeing

Overview

There's a type of person out there who is better at helping others than they are at looking after themselves. Maybe you're one of them. Maybe you know someone who is. They are the backbone of the caring professions, giving strength to our schools, clinics, care homes and hospitals. But you will also find them in offices, gyms, community groups and charities – everywhere you look. There's usually one in every family. But these people, who do so much to help others, are struggling. In their efforts to help wherever they can they typically overstretch themselves. Some face traumatic and distressing situations. Those in long-term caring relationships have no time to care for themselves. Those who are professional carers work prolonged hours with inadequate resources. Deeper down, beneath all of this, there is something else that causes helpers to suffer. It lurks unnoticed. It dwells in the psychology of the helper. Where people feel compelled to help others and don't look after their own needs, that's the Super-Helper Syndrome. Until recently this phenomenon has gone unnoticed and unnamed, but it has now been highlighted by chartered psychologists Jess Baker and Rod Vincent. The Super-Helper Syndrome offers a new perspective on the psychology of helping. It sets out how helping works and why it sometimes goes wrong. It brings to life psychological and neuroscientific research to explain the roots of compassion and empathy. It goes deep into the belief system of helpers and reveals what really motivates them. It illustrates all this with excerpts from a broad spectrum of interviews with paid and unpaid helpers, from ICU nurses to lawyers, volunteers to live-in carers. The book provides activities for the reader to profile and analyse their own helping relationships. It offers support for people who want to adopt a Healthy Helper Mindset, including meeting their own needs, building assertiveness and setting helping boundaries. It guides the reader towards countering the inner critic with mindful self-compassion. It's only by doing these things that compassionate people can be most effective at helping others. This book is for anyone who helps to the detriment of their own wellbeing. It's for anyone who wants to support the helpers in their life: colleagues, employees, family members or friends. And it's for anyone who wants to understand how helping works and to be better at it. It has been written because it's vital to improve the lives of those who improve the lives of others. AUTHORS: Jess Baker is a Chartered Psychologist. She started her career in clinical and research psychology in the NHS, and later moved into leadership roles in the corporate sector and consulting. She is an expert in wellbeing at work, helping clients tackle the imposter syndrome, build mental resilience, and become more self-compassionate. She speaks to large conference audiences on these topics. Over 1,000 women have participated in her online programme Tame Your Inner Critic. She contributes to publications and is regularly interviewed on BBC radio and television. Rod Vincent is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. From 1993 - 1999, he was Editor of Selection & Development Review published by the British Psychological Society.

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9781803996523

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Reviews

"""I was hooked right from the authors' note; there was such beautiful humanity to it. This book is a powerful catalyst in showing helpers how to help themselves. I loved the prompts bringing deep insight, expertly yet tenderly unpicking the core beliefs that keep us stuck in unhealthy helping habits, followed up with the practical tools to actually do things differently. This book is a game changer"" -- Suzy Reading * author of The Self-Care Revolution * 'Spend any time around most teachers and it probably won’t be long before you start seeing some visible signs of what co-authors Baker and Vincent, both chartered psychologists identify as Super-Helper Syndrome.' * Teach Secondary Magazine * 'If you have ever felt totally exhausted from relentlessly helping other people and putting their needs before yours then this book is a must-read. It's packed with fascinating insights as to why you're helping everyone except yourself and feeling burn out as a result. Read this if you want to redress the balance!' * Motherhood The Real Deal (UK Parenting Blogger) * 'It offers carers tools to set boundaries, realise their own limitations and understand why they often have an unrealistic and overwhelming need to help others.' * The Lady * 'That book is now on my Christmas list…' -- Kaye Adams * BBC RADIO SCOTLAND * 'This book is an essential read for anyone working in health or social care. It can help reveal why people respond in the way they do to the situations of others, the personal cost of doing so and how they can help without paying a high emotional price.' -- Prof Alison Leary PhD FRCN FQNI, MBE"

Author Information

Jess Baker is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She started her career in healthcare before specialising in business psychology. She has delivered webinars from her loft in Shropshire to global audiences. She is an award-winning coach. Over a thousand women have been through her online Tame Your Inner Critic programme. She speaks at conferences and festivals and is a regular commissioned writer on the subject of wellbeing. She comments on leadership, psychology at work and mental health for magazines, newspapers and national radio. As an expert on the wellbeing of helpers she offers her services on a voluntary basis to charities. Rod Vincent is an Anglo-Irish Chartered Psychologist, a writer and a musician. He is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and during his previous career as a business psychologist he helped to develop leaders in forty-one countries. He is now doing his best to rebalance that carbon footprint by confining himself to walking the Shropshire hills. His poems and stories have won prizes in competitions and been published in a number of literary journals including Poetry Ireland Review, Stand and The Rialto. His poems are also in the Iron Book of New Humorous Verse (Iron Press). He writes the lyrics and plays bass as one half of O’Reilly & Vincent.

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