Dr. Peter J. Weiss

Hi, I’m Dr. Pete Weiss of More Health Less Care, and today I’d like to talk about the work of Har­vey Hyman, J.D.  Har­vey is a lawyer who has ded­i­cated the remain­der of his career to help­ing other lawyers achieve well­be­ing.

Recently I posted a piece sug­gest­ing that lawyers might actu­ally be able to help their clients achieve well­be­ing, and Har­vey con­tacted me to say, “Pete, I don’t think you know it, but many, many lawyers are suf­fer­ing them­selves.”  Phys­i­cal, emo­tional and spir­i­tual ill­nesses are very, very com­mon in the legal pro­fes­sion.

Appar­ently, lawyers get burned out and they don’t take care of them­selves very well.  I was aston­ished to learn how com­mon this is.  About 20% of all lawyers in Amer­ica have some com­bi­na­tion of depres­sion or alco­holism.

Har­vey was there him­self, suf­fer­ing from major depres­sion.  When he recov­ered, he decided he would ded­i­cate the rest of his career to help­ing other lawyers recover.  That’s why he wrote this book.  It’s called “Upward Spi­ral: Get­ting Lawyers From Daily Mis­ery To Life­time Well­be­ing.”

I read it and I like it.  It’s a sort of field man­ual for lawyers who are strug­gling with the dif­fi­cult nature of the pro­fes­sion and their stress.  It shows them how they can make some changes so that they feel emo­tion­ally bet­ter; achieve well­be­ing; take care of their phys­i­cal life, their emo­tional life, their spir­i­tual life; and take good care of their fam­i­lies too.

With Harvey’s knowl­edge of how law is actu­ally prac­ticed, he’s able to give very prac­ti­cal advice that addresses the nitty-gritty of what goes on in law prac­tice and how to do things dif­fer­ently, such as how to think dif­fer­ently and how to act dif­fer­ently to make real improve­ments in your life.

So if you’re a suf­fer­ing or dis­sat­is­fied lawyer on the edge of burn out, or if you know some­one or care about a lawyer that you think is burn­ing out or could ben­e­fit from tak­ing bet­ter care of them­selves, I strongly rec­om­mend this book, the “Upward Spi­ral” by Har­vey Hyman.  Thanks Har­vey.