My Healing Companion:  A Journal for the Healthcare Provider, a self-directed journal filled with therapeutic stories and exercises designed to help the medical provider decrease stress, promote self care and re-energize passion for their work. 

Every day, the healthcare provider faces a myriad of patients who are dealing with challenging physical and mental health issues.  They provide medical interventions and emotional support to the patient as well as their families.  But where do these healthcare providers find their support?  How do they find balance between giving to others and caring for themselves?  Who and where do they turn to replenish their emotional needs?  This is at the heart of why we wrote My Healing Companion: A Journal for the Healthcare Provider.

The medical professionals are the unsung heroes of the medical world and the inspiration for this journal.  We’ve interacted with the medical community in a variety of ways and have seen first hand the importance the medical provider plays in a patients healing process.  We believe in the work of all healthcare providers and humbly offer youMy Healing Companion: A Journal for the Healthcare Provider as a tool for self-discovery and growth.

Fondly,
Beverly Kirkhart, Cancer survivor, National Speaker & Author
Janice Putrino, LMSW & Certified Clinical Journal Facilitator
Linda Sliwoski, RN, MS, Nursing Research Fellow

My Healing Companion: A Journal for the Healthcare Provider can help the healthcare provider revitalize passion for their work by:

• Learning how to recognize and set healthy boundaries with patients and colleagues

• Prioritize tasks and create realistic self expectations

• Identifying strategies to decrease stress through the use of journaling and other practices

• Understanding the vital role the healthcare provider plays in their patient’s treatment

• Learning how to utilize personal resources to improve communication skills and decision making abilities

Testimonials

“The authors of My Healing Companion:  A Journal for the Healthcare Provider offer a variety of reliable tools for self-care, like journaling, to healthcare providers who may overlook their own needs while in service to others.  Their guide promises to strengthen any medical team that elects to follow their recommendations.”
---Nancy Morgan, Director of Arts and Humanities, Lombardi
Comprehensive Cancer Center

“Over the last two decades, over 200 scientific research articles have explored how writing about upsetting experiences can influence people's physical and mental health.  My Healing Companion: A Journal for the Healthcare Provider applies many of the findings from the laboratory to people's real world experiences.  By putting thoughts and emotions onto paper, healthcare providers, patients, and their families can all benefit.”
--James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin
Author of Writing to heal: A guided journal for recovering from trauma and emotional upheaval.  New Harbinger Press.

For information about large quantity sales, programs, workshops or speaking engagements contact
Janice Putrino at
Email:  jpjournaling@frontiernet.net.  Phone: 585.288.5306

Published as a self-guided journal, eleven sections examine the complex personal issues that people with cancer have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Each year over 1 million people are diagnosed with cancer, and each day, these people need to make some of the biggest decisions and answer some of the toughest questions of their lives—do I want to live or die, how do I want my quality of life to be, Is it o.k. to be angry? Why me? and more. Beverly Katherine Kirkhart cancer survivor, national inspirational speaker, and co-author of Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul, addresses each section in a way that only someone who has been on the journey can.

This important seIf-guided journal considers a number of different aspects of the cancer journey: The physical social, and enduring emotional meaning of having cancer is explored, as are the steps Beverly has used and suggests that others use to move beyond the “why me” syndrome.

The book features many examples and exercises for dealing with these daily emotions. Included are stories of Beverly’s own experiences and examples of how she was able to cope, adjust, become positive and ultimately become her own hero. Along with the stories, are exercises that ask the reader to become involved with their cancer—from something as simple as giving and getting hugs, to writing healing letters to making ice cream sundaes with a friend. At the end of each section are blank pages—a place for people to write their stories and jot down their daily experiences—from anger to happiness and everything in between.