Practicing What You Preach - Self-care for Helping Professionals by Jeffrey Kottler
Education Book Talk
Jan 14, 2026 — 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
The Faculty of Education invites you to join another Book Club session, part of the EDI Circles Book Talk series, and meet Jeffrey Kottler, author of Practicing What You Preach - Self-care for Helping Professionals. Come prepared with your questions and thoughts for an engaging conversation.
Description
Practicing What You Preach: Self-Care for Helping Professionals assists readers in recovering from the strains and demands of working within the helping professions, not through reminders to take a break or a deep breath, but through the recognition that self-care requires a constant commitment to addressing larger and more complex issues that can lead to exhaustion, depression, and burnout.
The book reviews the nature and manifestations of acute and chronic compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and related issues, examining the origins of these difficulties. It explains why traditional, short-term ideas of self-care usually don’t work very well, for very long, and why it’s so challenging to begin and maintain healthy habits. The text helps readers recognize and confront complex issues— dysfunctional organizational climates, neglectful or abusive supervisors, overloaded schedules, unresolved personal issues, interpersonal conflicts, and unhealthy lifestyles—and then move toward productive, healthy, long-term resolutions.
Written with empathy and deep understanding, Practicing What You Preach is well suited for courses in social work, counseling, family therapy, psychology, human services, health professions, and other related fields, as well as a guide for practitioners.
Jeffrey A. Kottler
Author
Jeffrey A. Kottler is one of the most prominent authors and presenters in the fields of counseling, psychotherapy, health, education, and advocacy. He has written over 100 non-fiction books about a wide range of subjects, including On Being a Therapist (6th ed.), Stories We’ve Heard, Stories We’ve Told: Life-Changing Narratives in Therapy and Everyday Life, Practicing What You Preach: Self-care for Helping Professionals, and his latest memoir, Changing People’s Lives While Transforming My Own: Memoir of an Imperfect Therapist.
Jeffrey has also written several popular books about a variety of psychological themes: Private Moments, Secret Selves, Divine Madness: Ten Stories of Creative Struggle, and the best-selling true crime book, The Last Victim: Inside the Minds of Serial Killers that was produced as a Hollywood feature film (Dear Mr. Gacy).
Jeffrey has been a counselor, therapist, supervisor, researcher, and educator for five decades, having worked in a preschool, middle school, mental health center, crisis center, hospital, medical school, refugee resettlement agency, non-governmental organization (NGO), university, community college, private practice, and disaster relief settings. He’s also the founder of Empower Nepali Girls, a charitable organization that supports and mentors at-risk children. He has served as a Fulbright scholar and senior lecturer in Peru and Iceland, as well as worked as a visiting professor in New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Nepal. Jeffrey is Professor Emeritus of Counseling at California State University, Fullerton. He currently lives in Houston where he works on projects related to refugee and immigrant trauma.
Jeffrey was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa in 2016 and delivered the commencement speech.