Advance Praise for Caring For Self & Others

We’ve gotten some really nice endorsements for the upcoming release of Caring for Self & Others: Transforming Burnout, Compassion Fatigue, and Soul Loss – which will be released on June 25th and is currently available for pre-order through Amazon. I’ll share some of the comments below:

“It is a healing experience to read the beautiful, self-journey into self-caring through the wounded depth of the dark night of soul. It is through such personal sharing of self that we learn from each other. David Kopacz ‘s book offers readers a gift of hope, courage and self love, that both teach and inspirit us with his soul’s path into self-caring and heart healing.”

Jean Watson, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN, LL (AAN), Founder Watson Caring Science Institute, Distinguished Prof/Dean Emerita University of Colorado Denver, College of Nursing

“This holistic, imaginative and soulful response to burnout is much needed in today’s world.”

Dr. Dina Glouberman, author of The Joy of Burnout: How the end of the world can be a new beginning

“As physicians, we may not always acknowledge that we each have a soul. However, we are in a sacred profession that truly holds the soul of our patients. Whatever we call it, there is a place deep within us–almost the elephant in the room–that is our compass guiding us, our North Star. Oftentimes we get lost because we don’t care for our internal compass. That is the essence of what’s lost in healthcare today. If we have the true soulful connection with our Self, it needs to be fed first so that we can be available to everyone else. 

When we make self-care and colleague care an unapologetic and unashamed priority, we can give the best care to our patients. David Kopacz invites us to reconnect to our humanity, nurturing our hearts and minds as healers and setting the stage for our systems to heal as well.”

Mukta Panda, MD, author of Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being and co-author of The Oath to Self-Care and Well-Being

Caring for Self & Others Transforming Burnout, Compassion Fatigue, and Soul Loss is a blueprint for authentic happiness. Dr. David Kopacz has gifted us with an insightful guide for self-care. He points to how burnout and compassion fatigue lead to losing our souls and how the loss teaches us a way into depth and spirituality. He suggests ways to sit with equanimity between the wholeness of the sacred and the mundane. This book is an invitation to show up fully and to rediscover there is no split of body/mind or between the self and the collective; it contains perennial wisdom with all its regenerative power. 

Marianela Medrano, PhD, What a Word is Worth podcast, and author of Rooting, Diosas de la yuca, and other titles

“David Kopacz, versed in worldwide healing traditions where illness is approached as a loss of soul and healing involves its restoration, offers a complete vision of individual, social, and earth practice where everything contributes to a communion of creation that transforms afflictions into affirmations of life. His personal “dark night” shows the way to a timeless discipline of compassionate creation with others, helping us see that we participate in a process larger than ourselves yet sustained by our unique and personal contributions.”

Shaun McNiff, PhD, author of Art as Medicine, Art Heals, Integrating the Arts in Therapy, Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go, Imagination in Action: Secrets for Unleashing Creative Expression, and other books. Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, 2021 to date: University Professor Emeritus

“Finally, a book that puts together what self-care and healing are really about! Kopacz, an exceptional healer, presents a comprehensive and holistic perspective on ideas and practices that can mitigate the burnout and fatigue that are rampant in healthcare. This is a handbook that will help every practitioner reclaim their role as healer and reconnect with the Soul of their practice. An exquisite, insightful and transformative work!”

Lucia Thornton, ThD, MSN, RN, Past President, American Holistic Nurses Association, Past President, Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine, and author of Whole Person Caring: An Interprofessional Model for Healing and Wellness

“As a clinician who has experienced deep burnout, I adore this book and find it endlessly useful. Dr. Kopacz aptly offers his work as an oxygen mask. He exquisitely supports attention toward the crucial self care healers of all kinds desperately need for thriving lives.”

Kate King, MA, LPC, ATR-BC, author of The Radiant Life Project

Caring for Self & Others: Transforming Burnout, Compassion Fatigue, and Soul Loss  demands to be read with our heads and our hearts.   David Kopacz challenges us to care for ourselves, others and the systems we work in.  The book is filled with exercises and meditations that can help us in this work.  David also shares his journey and how he was employed the ideas and exercises in his own life that reveal the depth of his commitment to caring.”

John (Jack) Miller, Professor at the University of Toronto and author of Education and the Soul, Love and Compassion: Exploring Their Role in Education, and A Holistic Educator’s Journey: Seeking Wholeness in America, Canada, Japan and AsiaThe Holistic Curriculum

Caring for Self & Others charts a path through the inevitable downturns and struggles of our lives by using our very suffering as material for transformation and growth. It elaborates a practice of caring that leads us from our individual pain into service to others by breaking down the mental barriers that lead us to believe that there is a self separate from others. This is perennial wisdom for the soul.”

Stephen Cope, Scholar Emeritus, Kripalu Center, bestselling author of The Great Work of Your Life, The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker’s Guide to Extraordinary Living, and The Dharma in Difficult Times: Finding Your Calling in Times of Loss, Change, Struggle, and Doubt

Caring for Self and Others speaks directly to us in these uncertain and difficult times; a book that we must read. The author uses his own experience both as a doctor and patient to deeply delve into the different kinds of caring: for the body, for emotion, for mind, heart. It is a book full of wisdom gained by the author’s insight and continuous growing curiosity about life and the importance of caring and healing. This book is written for you; that is, anyone with an interest in the world around us who knows that to live well (or thrive), we need to care for ourselves and others. David Kopacz both explains why we need to care but also gives practical ways of doing so.”

Jonathan McFarland, MA, President and Founder of The Doctor as a Humanist and co-editor of Health Humanities for Quality of Care in Times of COVID -19, Associate Professor, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Caring for Self & Others: Transforming Burnout, Compassion Fatigue, and Soul Loss will be published by Creative Courage Press – thanks to Shelly Francis for all the support in the publication process!

Exploring integrative and holistic healing at all levels of being with Dr. David Kopacz (Part 2 of 3) – on the Holistic Psychiatrist Podcast with Dr. Alice Lee

The second part of Alice Lee’s interview of me is up on her Holistic Psychiatrist Podcast!

This second part covers transforming suffering, the Hero’s Journey, the movie Groundhog Day, Joseph Rael’s teachings on the Medicine Wheel, and a discussion of circular models of healing.

Part 1 is available through the same link.

Part 3 will air next week. While you are on the site you can check out some of Alice’s other podcast interviews!

Great Book about Healing by Returning to the Land of War to Find Peace

John Wesley Fisher, DC, asked if I would review and write an endorsement for his new book, Dak To Rx: A Travelogue – A Veteran Returns to the Land of His Nightmares. John is a Vietnam veteran and the Founding Director of CORE (Community Reconciliation)Viet Nam. Dak To is the name of a town in Vietnam that John had been in during the Vietnam War. Returning to engage with the land and the people, now from a state of peace, rather than war, leads to healing and the formation of many friendships. One Vietnamese veteran tells John, “Now all survivors are the same…we didn’t kill each other, so now we can be friends and teach the world about peace together.” Here is my endorsement of the book:

Dak To RX is just what the doctor ordered for healing PTSD and coming home from war to peace. John Wesley Fisher is a man of many places and roles: seeker, chiropractor, surfer, traveler, and Vietnam Veteran.

Dak To RX is a journal of his journeys throughout Vietnam in 2011-2012 where he finds compassion, acceptance, peace, and healing from the people he meets and the places where he walks up on the land. His nightmare becomes a dream of peace and healing.

Fisher notes that it is “a sacred time being on the road,” and his journey is a sacred journey of healing. He meets many Veterans (both former allies and enemies) and survivors of the American War in Vietnam along the way. What he learns from one former enemy is, “Now all survivors are the same…we didn’t kill each other, so now we can be friends and teach the world about peace together.”

David R. Kopacz, MD

Psychiatrist, Seattle VA
National VA Education Champion – Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation
Assistant Professor, University of Washington

Re-humanizing Medicine on Web Radio!

You can listen to an interview with Dave Kopacz about his book, Re-humanizing Medicine, by Mary Treacy O’Keefe on her radio show, “Hope, Healing and WellBeing” at WebTalkRadio. It is my first radio appearance for the book. It is about 35 minutes long.

Mary Treacy O'Keefe

Mary Treacy O’Keefe

You can listen to the interview by following this link.

Thanks Mary for the interview, I think it turned out great!

Also, the book is now in warehouses and I received notice from Amazon that the pre-orders of the book should start being delivered early next month, even before the official release date!

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