professionals have to go through their long and intensive educations where they are listened to, and experience all those feelings they meet later. So if you are properly educated, you are personally connected.

In professional life and teamwork, but also in friendship, in love, and in all personal relationships, listening is essential. Listening to someone in depth means taking a voluntary step that is not passive. Listening is not only hearing. It is to decide to pay attention to whoever speaks to us.

We don't listen to others for what they have to tell us, but for the answer we want to give them. We hear, but we don't listen. We live in a society where what we are told by others does not always interest us, because the only thing that matters to us is what we are convinced of. Listening is adopting an attitude towards life, something we don't always do.

In my view it is not an easy thing to start off with. Depending on how deep or close the relationship or connection of the professional with the decised and how deep and long the grief was, the professional level of assessment would be affected accordingly.

Thank you for your considered responses. Listening feels such a key aspect of connecting to suffering deeply as a professional. But in the UK there is little emphasis on developing the skills of listening. We are taught to do and react with answers - rather than being still, curious and open to a joint next step. In so doing often missing the point and reducing trust and safety.

These resources by Irvin Yalom may interest you:

https://www.amazon.com/Every-Day-Gets-Little-Closer/dp/0465021182

https://www.amazon.com/Loves-Executioner-Other-Tales-Psychotherapy/dp/0465020119/ref=pd_lpo_14_img_1/134-1222587-0575112?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0465020119&pd_rd_r=a1cc5692-c2e6-4156-bee6-30896e818897&pd_rd_w=8t1I9&pd_rd_wg=GwEfl&pf_rd_p=7b36d496-f366-4631-94d3-61b87b52511b&pf_rd_r=94RTYG6Z08C4D37GJW26&psc=1&refRID=94RTYG6Z08C4D37GJW26

https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Therapy-Generation-Therapists-Patients/dp/0061719617/ref=pd_lpo_14_img_2/134-1222587-0575112?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0061719617&pd_rd_r=a1cc5692-c2e6-4156-bee6-30896e818897&pd_rd_w=8t1I9&pd_rd_wg=GwEfl&pf_rd_p=7b36d496-f366-4631-94d3-61b87b52511b&pf_rd_r=94RTYG6Z08C4D37GJW26&psc=1&refRID=94RTYG6Z08C4D37GJW26

Thank you all. Any links to this topic are appreciated. I am currently gathering individual stories of staff in mental health workplaces who are brave enough to discuss their own mental distress. A wish to acknowledge that suffering has no boundary. My own experience is that there is alot of shame and denial around - workers are not always supported to express basic needs, they then go unexpressed and become a barrier to connecting with others suffering. Unexpressed grief and loss can shut the heart.