Why Cope When You Can Heal How

Why Cope When You Can Heal? is an essential resource for doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other healthcare professionals—and the leaders who support them—as they navigate the traumatic stress they have experienced and continue to face.

COVID-19 has traumatized the world—and no group has been more impacted than frontline healthcare workers. They’ve worked without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), witnessed mass death, and been forced to make choices that haunt them. Many have fallen ill, while others have worried endlessly about their own health and that of their loved ones.

Additionally, all of this is happening in the context of a divided nation, a struggling industry, and a “just get over it” culture that exacerbates the problems healthcare workers face, while minimizing their suffering. These factors have created the perfect storm for widespread stress, depression, anxiety, and hopelessness—and, increasingly, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Medical doctor and psychiatrist Mark Goulston shares practical, evidence-based techniques and treatments for managing traumatic stress that will fill you with hope and inspiration.

In Why Cope When You Can Heal?, you will discover:

• real-world accounts and experiences from frontline workers;
• an overview of treatment options; and
• exercises, tools, and tips that you can use today.

This guide will help you—and those you love and support in the COVID-19 battle—begin the process of healing from the inside out and reconnect with the joys and rewards of career and life.

Mark Goulston, MD, FAPA is a board-certified psychiatrist, fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, former assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA NPI, and a former FBI and police hostage negotiation trainer. He is the creator of Theory Y Executive Coaching—which he provides to CEOs, presidents, founders, and entrepreneurs—and is a TEDx and international keynote speaker. He is the creator and developer of Surgical Empathy, a process to help people recover and heal from PTSD, prevent suicide in teenagers and young adults, and help organizations overcome implicit bias. Dr. Goulston is the author or principal author of seven prior books, including Why Cope When you Can Heal: How Healthcare Heroes of COVID-19 Can Recover from PTSD, PTSD for Dummies, Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone, Real Influence: Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In, and Talking to Crazy: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life. He hosts the My Wakeup Call podcast, where he speaks with influencers about their purpose in life and the wakeup calls that led them there. He also is the co-creator and moderator of the multi-honored documentary Stay Alive: An Intimate Conversation About Suicide Prevention.

He appears frequently as a human psychology and behavior subject-area expert across all media, including news outlets ABC, NBC, CBS, and BBC News, as well as CNN, Today, Oprah, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Fast Company, Huffington Post, and Westwood One.

Diana Hendel, PharmD, is an executive coach and leadership consultant, former hospital CEO, and author of Responsible: A Memoir, a riveting and deeply personal account of leading during and through the aftermath of a deadly workplace trauma. As the CEO of Long Beach Memorial Medical Center and Miller Children’s and Women’s Hospital, Hendel led one of the largest acute care, trauma, and teaching hospital complexes on the West Coast. She has served in leadership roles in numerous community organizations and professional associations, including chair of the California Children’s Hospital Association, executive committee member of the Hospital Association of Southern California, vice chair of the Southern California Leadership Council, chair of the Greater Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, board member of the California Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and leader-in-residence of the Ukleja Center for Ethical Leadership at California State University Long Beach.  She is co-author of Why Cope When You Can Heal: How Healthcare Heroes of COVID-19 Can Recover from PTSD.