Book Review: Holding Fast: The Struggle to Create Resilient Caregiving Organisations

William A Kahn, Brunner-Routledge

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