The Inner Life of the Counselor - Hardcover

One of the greatest gifts helping professionals can share with others is a sense of their own peace. However, retaining and renewing a sense of a healthy perspective requires not only self-care strategies, but also an awareness of basic profound, yet simple, wisdom themes. The Inner Life of the Counselor presents classic and contemporary wisdom that examines and explores each of these themes in a way that both professional and non-professional helpers will find revealing and meaningful in understanding their own journey. Informed by the author's over thirty years of experience as a therapist, mentor, and clinical supervisor of professional helpers?as well as by his expertise in resiliency and prevention of secondary stress?The Inner Life of the Counselor thoughtfully looks at those elements that encourage sustained personal growth and professional development, such as self-care, stress management, and mindfulness. Lively, practical, and marked by an elegant sense of simplicity, this nurturing book demonstrates how exploring the inner life can lead counselors to new wisdom and inner peace?not only for themselves but also for those who come to them for relief and insight. It is an invitation to pause, reflect, renew, and navigate one of contemporary society's most challenging yet rewarding professions.

Praise for The Inner Life of the Counselor

"Robert Wicks helps counselors to create a place of light within, as well as a nurturing spirit that sustains us in the places of darkness through which we all must pass at times. . . . He allows us to embrace and nourish our inner life so we as counselors may live both mindfully and with a greater sense of meaning . . . [and] underscores the importance of cleansing our reflections so we can avoid 'contamination' of those we care for and not lose our sense of meaning and mission as helpers in the process."
—Bradley T. Erford, PhD; President, American Counseling Association (2012–2013); author, Orientation to the Counseling Profession and Transforming the School Counseling Profession

"Robert Wicks has skillfully drawn out practical learning from the wisdom traditions of the world that illuminates the precious nature of this healing space."
—David Brazier, author, Zen Therapy

"Robert Wicks takes the reader on a journey exploring The Inner Life of the Counselor and the vast wealth that exists in silence. Once again, he reminds us that the strength of the counselor is in bringing equanimity and an open heart to our life and work, forged through our capacity to sit with ourselves in meditation."
—Cheryl A. Giles, PsyD, Francis Greenwood Peabody Professor of the Practice in Pastoral Care and Counseling, Harvard Divinity School

"In The Inner Life of the Counselor, Wicks challenges each of us as counselors, in his straightforward yet profound way, to revisit the landscape of the inner horizon to access not only our knowledge, but also our innate wisdom as healers."
—Craig S. Cashwell, PhD, LPC, NCC, ACS, CSAT, Professor of Counseling and Educational Development, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; coeditor, Integrating Spirituality and Religion into Counseling, Second Edition