Still Practicing

<p>Still practicing has several meanings. <em>Still </em>practicing suggests that the balance of heartaches and joys must not deter us from pursuing a clinical practice. At the same time still <em>practicing</em> suggests that for the clinician practice never makes perfect. We continue to refine our clinical instruments over our entire working lives.</p><p>Framed by her previous work on the concept of emotional balance Sandra Buechler investigates how vicissitudes in a clinical career can have a profound and lasting impact on the clinician's emotional balance and considers how the clinician's resilience is maintained in the face of the personal fallout of a lifetime of clinical practice. At each juncture from training to early phases of clinical experience through mid and late career she asks what can help us maintain a vital interest in our work? How do we not burn out?</p><p>Aimed at the nexus of the personal and theoretical <em>Still Practicing</em> concentrates on the sadness feelings of shame and satisfactions inherent in practice and encourages newcomers and veterans alike to make career choices mindful of their potential long-term impact on their feelings about being therapists. It poses a question vital to the life of the clinician: How can we strike a balance between the work's inevitable pain and its potential joy?</p>