| View Larger Image | If Only I'd Had This Caregiving Book | Paperbackby Maya Hennessey (Author)
| List Price: | $18.98 | | Price: | $16.23 | | You Save: | $2.75 (14%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | AuthorHouse | | Page Count: | 116 Pages | | Publication Date: | January 10, 2006 | | Sales Rank: | 139,544th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Caring For A Loved One? Are you overwhelmed by the demands of caring for a loved one? Is your mounting "To-Do List" crushing you more each day? Has caregiving squeezed out friends and activities that once brought joy? Feeling forsaken by the lack of help and betrayed by broken promises? Find it difficult to ask for help? Professionals Helpers?Are you a case manager, counselor, group leader for caregivers? Does your heart ache watching caregivers burn out? Whether you are a caregiver for a loved one or a professional caregiver trying to help caregivers, Maya's Model is for! When you are called-perhaps suddenly!-by fate and circumstance to be the one ultimately responsible for care and daily living needs of another person, please know that you are not alone. Family members, friends, and various agencies are approachable, helpful and often eager to help you in managing the burdens of caregiving. Most caregivers embark on this journey with loving determination, while family members, friends, professional colleagues and even healthcare professionals fail to recognize how often caregivers become the 'second victim' of their loved one's illness. "I learned this lesson as I cared for my husband through a struggle with terminal brain cancer. My professional life, personal life and health suffered as a result of the stress. Research shows that caregiving weakens the immune system. Without adequate support caregivers deteriorate with their loved one, sometimes even faster. But, there is hope. Studies show that an Effective Social Support Network offers the vital protection to help caregivers thrive and survive the otherwise harrowing, and sometimes life threatening experience of caregiving. Each caregiver and each situation is unique. Using a workshop format, the reader will move through self discovery exercises to honor his/her unique personality and preferences, developing an individualized network to support, regardless of the loved ones condition or resources. This net |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 4 reviews)
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Review of "If Only..." by John Hindman by S. Schaale (Chicago, IL)  5 Stars
August 26, 2009
Maya Hennessey has important news to any family caregiver of a seriously debilitated loved one in her book. Hennessey alerts you to the research that family caregiving weakens the immune system, unless you have an effective network of support. During the two-and-a-half years her husband and love of her life was dying of brain cancer, she began writing the lessons she was learning to guide other caregivers through the day-to-day quotidian horribleness of providing care for a loved one without sacrifice your own humanity. You can benefit from Maya's Model found in If Only I'd Had This Caregiving Book (AuthorHouse).
Hennessey--a longtime (and acclaimed) addictions counselor, educator, consultant, trainer, and psychotherapist--has brought to bear all of her skills, experience, and hard-won insights on this most difficult of situations. If Only is a 102-page workbook certain to change the life of any caregiver--of a partner, child, sibling, or parent--who applies Maya's Model to their challenges. It is a wonderful hybrid that combines theory, personal stories and empowering exercises into practical and therapeutic solutions to the seemingly insoluble problems that anyone of us might face when caring for a loved one with a serious disease or injury.
After a helpful introduction, If Only begins with the author's moving story of how she came to write it--as a desperate response to the agonizing loss of her husband. She writes, "Each caregiver has a personal story to tell. Here's mine [. . .] Walk with me through my story of near-destruction, the mistakes I made, and the lessons I learned that evolved into the model I present you, Caregiver, unsung hero that you are." This warm and direct engagement with the reader permeates the theory, practical advice, and exercises that follow.
Then, in easy-to-apply steps, Hennessey lays out the model she wishes she had had when her trials began, made up of: the Caregiver (each one's unique personality and preferences); the To-Do List (unique to the reader/user, their family, and the loved one); the Social Support Network (composed of the reader/user's friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances, and community services people); and the all-important Mind-Mapping method which blends the right and left brain into creative problem solving. Mind Mapping is a simple but creative and flexible way to sketch out and break down tasks; assemble categories of people (helpers) in one's Social Support Network; and match up helpers (the Social Support Network) with the tasks.
As with the old proverb "The work will teach you how to do it," Hennessey's simple yet powerful exercises guide the reader to apply solutions specific to their own experience. This, in turn, helps the caregiver to deal with feelings and blocks that the exercises might bring up, and get more out of any therapy or relevant support groups they avail themselves of. If Only presents both basic, practical tools for concrete, step-by-step approaches and psychic/spiritual insights to undergird and support the caregiver.
The book brings all of its arsenal to bear in the second-to-last chapter, "Dealing with Difficult People," with an emphasis on kindness, understanding, and firmness. Anecdotes of success in turning unhelpful friends into useful members of the caregiver's social network (or at least neutral observers) is terrific, as is advice on dealing with healthcare and social service professionals and others, using Hennessey's "Assertiveness Ladder."
The last chapter, "Until We Meet Again," ties the book together with warm and practical closing from the author. A thorough resource list of recommended reading and organizational sources, as well as an appendix listing all of the exercises currently comprising "Maya's Model," fill out the book.
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Caregiving help by Sharon W. (Texas, USA)  4 Stars
October 06, 2008
This book is arranged well when looking for topics in the writers caregiving history. Not quite what I expected from the title, but a good quick reference.
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Yes, If Only.... by Carol Bennett (Henderson, KY, USA) 5 Stars
January 29, 2007
If only I had read Maya's caregiving book four years ago, I'd have saved myself a lot of grief in the forms of resentment and guilt. And I would have been a better caregiver to both my mother and to myself. When my ailing mother came to live with me, I was knocked off my feet with this entirely different type of relationship with her. For 60 years, she had been my mother, now she had become my child. I had planned my retirement years carefully, including lots of traveling, and I was spending those years listening to her memories of her own marvelous post-retirement travels. I resented the fact that the rest of my family had abandoned her to my care. I could find no relief. At times I was angry; more often, I was awash with guilt. Maya's book took me step-by-step through the caregiving experience and explained the overwhelming ups and downs that every caregiver goes through, including the guilt trips. But more than that, this book showed me not only did I deserve help, but how to identify sources of help and how to ask for it. I don't have to do it all myself all the time. Now, I can take care of my own needs without feeling guilty. This book made me realize the resources I have, the help that's available, and the techniques that work to relieve stress and feelings of guilt. Once I gained a better perspective through this book, I have been able to give care more freely and live my own life more fully than I had been able to since mother came here. Thank you, Maya.
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TLC for the caregiver by D. Moran 5 Stars
September 13, 2006
This book not only helped me acknowledge my strengths as a caregiver, but also allowed me to seek the help I needed (to assist with my dad) from my friends and family members. I liked the simple excercises and found by working through them, I got increased strength and had more time for myself, my husband and my kids.
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