Workplace violence is a serious and unfortunately common problem in the healthcare and social services sector. For example, 50 percent of child protection workers report meeting with at least one hostile or intimidating parent each week (Littlechild et al., 2016) while a recent study found that some psychiatric nurses are the victim of an average 0.19 physical assaults by patients each week (Ridenour, et al., 2015). We know that the consequences of such violence can be especially damaging for professionals’ mental health (see Lanctôt & Guay, 2014 for a review), but we are only beginning to investigate how these consequences can later impact the bond between professionals and their patients.
