John Launer

This unique book presents in a single collection around 50 essays by Dr Launer on reflective practice in medicine, including examples specific to medical education and multiprofessional healthcare. Based on existing contributions to the literature by Dr Launer, the book brings them together in updated form for the first time as a themed collection with an introduction linking the different topics addressed. Coverage includes communication skills, supervision, teamwork and organisational health. In a time of unprecedented demand on healthcare services, educators and practitioners, Dr Launer offers invaluable guidance to a broad audience including community-based GPs, practice nurses and nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physician assistants and paramedics, secondary care staff including consultants and registrars across all specialties, communications skills educators, counsellors and mental health professionals, and health service managers and administrators.

This unique book presents in a single collection around 50 essays by Dr Launer on reflective practice in medicine, including examples specific to medical education and multiprofessional healthcare. Based on existing contributions to the literature by Dr Launer, the book brings them together in updated form for the first time as a themed collection with an introduction linking the different topics addressed. Coverage includes communication skills, supervision, teamwork and organisational health. In a time of unprecedented demand on healthcare services, educators and practitioners, Dr Launer offers invaluable guidance to a broad audience including community-based GPs, practice nurses and nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physician assistants and paramedics, secondary care staff including consultants and registrars across all specialties, communications skills educators, counsellors and mental health professionals, and health service managers and administrators.

John Launer, a United States Army Combat Infantryman in the Vietnam War, details his horrific experiences during that time. Setting the record straight that soldiers were not drug addicts, murderers, and baby killers, Launer documents that American media bias led to the public misunderstanding of the war. The action within is violent, bloody, and never ending, leading many veterans to devastating physical and psychological trauma upon their return home to the USA.

The essential book on how not to be a doctor - and how to be a better one. Drawn from his popular medical columns over the years, John Launer shares fifty of his best-loved essays, covering topics from essentials skills they don’t teach you in medical school to his poignant account of being a patient himself as he received treatment for a life-threatening illness. Taken together, the stories make the case that being a doctor should mean drawing on every aspect of yourself, your interests and your experiences no matter how remote they seem from the medical task at hand. How Not to Be a Doctor combines humour, candour and the human touch to inform and entertain readers on both ends of the stethoscope.

Who was Sabina Spielrein? Her dramatic life story is most famous for her notorious affair with Carl Jung, dramatised in the film A Dangerous Method starring Keira Knightley. Yet she was a woman who overcame family and psychiatric abuse to become an original thinker in the field of psychotherapy. This is the first biography to put her life and ideas at the centre of the story, and to examine Spielreins key role in the development of psychoanalysis and in the rift between Jung and Freud. Drawing on fresh research into Spielreins diaries, papers and correspondence, John Launer tells the story of a passionate woman who transformed herself from one of Jungs disturbed patients into a leading figure in Western psychology, then the Soviet intelligentsia, before losing her life in the Holocaust. At the heart of Sex Versus Survival is the gripping tale of Spielrein and Jungs tumultuous affair, which played such an important role in both of their lives and intellectual journeys. Launer shows how Spielreins overlooked ideas rejected by Jung and Freud, but substantially vindicated by later developments in psychology and evolutionary biology may represent the last and most important stage in the rediscovery of an extraordinary life.

Narrative-Based Practice in Health and Social Care outlines a vision of how witnessing narratives, paying attention to them, and developing an ability to question them creatively, can make the person’s emerging story the central focus of health and social care, and of healing. This text gives an account of the practical application of ideas and skills from contemporary narrative studies to health and social care. Promoting narrative-based practice in everyday encounters with patients and clients, and in supervision, teaching, teamwork and management, it presents "Conversations Inviting Change," an established narrative-based model of interactional skills. Underpinned by an account of theory from narrative studies and related fields, including communication theory and systems thinking, it is written for students and practitioners across a broad range of professions in primary and secondary health care and social care. More information about "Conversations Inviting Change" is available at www.conversationsinvitingchange.com. This website includes podcasts, presentations and further teaching material as well as details of forthcoming courses, and is continually updated with information about the approach described in this book.

Narrative-Based Practice in Health and Social Care outlines a vision of how witnessing narratives, paying attention to them, and developing an ability to question them creatively, can make the person’s emerging story the central focus of health and social care, and of healing. This text gives an account of the practical application of ideas and skills from contemporary narrative studies to health and social care. Promoting narrative-based practice in everyday encounters with patients and clients, and in supervision, teaching, teamwork and management, it presents "Conversations Inviting Change," an established narrative-based model of interactional skills. Underpinned by an account of theory from narrative studies and related fields, including communication theory and systems thinking, it is written for students and practitioners across a broad range of professions in primary and secondary health care and social care. More information about "Conversations Inviting Change" is available at www.conversationsinvitingchange.com. This website includes podcasts, presentations and further teaching material as well as details of forthcoming courses, and is continually updated with information about the approach described in this book.

This unique and practical book provides a clear introduction to clinical supervision and support in primary care. Supervision and Support in Primary Care provides practical information and guidance on the nature and purpose of clinical supervision. It uses examples and perspectives from the world of mental health, Balint groups and self-directed learning, and examines the benefits and challenges of supervision within the primary care setting. Numerous case studies are used throughout to describe the wide range of current approaches to supervision for general practitioners, illustrating how this can contribute towards more effective clinical work and training. All those working within primary care will find this book valuable reading.