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William A Kahn, Brunner-Routledge

ISBN 1583919376, £17.99

STAR RATING 2/5

This is a book with an important message: that organisations in the caring professions need to be supportive of their staff and help them foster resilience to cope with the pressures and demands of such emotionally charged work, writes Neil Thompson.

This basic message is a clear strength of the book, as is the author's clear commitment to promoting workplaces that help, rather than hinder, the efforts of staff to succeed in doing a difficult and demanding job. However, the message is conveyed in the language of psychodynamics and falls into the trap of explaining sociological phenomena (organisational dynamics, for example) in individualist, psychological terms.

The author also relies on a number of unsupported assertions. Nonetheless, the book does contain some important insights into "workplace well-being".

Neil Thompson is managing director of Avenue Consulting