The Influence of Risk and Protection Factors on the Professional Resilience in the Helping Professions

Abstract

The article presents an overview of researches on the impact of risk and protection factors on the professional resilience of specialists in the helping professions which were published over the last five years. In the analysis of the international literature, several main trends in the study of the phenomenon of professional resilience of specialists in the helping professions (SHP) are presented. In particular, the consequences of the pandemic are considered as risk factor for the SHP resilience. It is noted that most of the research papers on professional resilience are devoted to SHP in the field of social work and medicine (nurses, doctors), less - to psychologists and psychotherapists. A number of the papers concern the peculiarities of the formation of professional resilience among students studying these specialties. The protection factors and some components of professional resilience, in particular, "spirituality", are presented in more details. Among risk factors, the phenomenon of compassion fatigue is analyzed, as specific for SHP. Among the protection factors the phenomenon of warmth and competence is parsed. The article briefly describes several tests designed to measure professional resilience, as well as programs aimed at improving the SHP resilience.