What is compassion fatigue

Commonalitities of Burnout and Compassion Fatigue:. Compassion fatigue develops over time — taking weeks, sometimes years to surface. Over time, your ability to feel and care for others becomes eroded through overuse of your skills of compassion. You also might experience an emotional blunting — whereby you react to situations differently than one would normally expect.

When Helping Hurts by F. Oshberg, MD. Find someone to talk to. Understand that the pain you feel is normal. Exercise and eat properly. Compassion fatigue develops over time; you can spot the signs if you know what to look for.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health explains that the main symptoms of compassion fatigue include the following:. Identifying compassion fatigue can help you start taking steps to manage it.

The SARS outbreak of can offer important insights into mitigating compassion fatigue. According to an article in the Canadian Journal of Public Health , there are two evidence-based interventions for reducing pandemic-related stress by fostering individual resilience. Hospital leadership and management also play an important role in mitigating physician compassion fatigue. Sharron Spicer explains that when it comes to preventing compassion fatigue, good management and good leadership go hand in hand.

Managers should take steps to ensure that physicians can provide safe and effective care to their patients. Improving the culture and efficacy of the work environment can also contribute to greater physician resilience. Leaders should advocate for necessary changes, address conflict when it arises and ensure mentorship and succession planning. Effective organizational strategies can support a culture of wellness that leads to a decrease in compassion fatigue and an increase in compassion satisfaction.

Compassion satisfaction refers to the pleasure derived from work, from helping others, and can be related to providing care, working with colleagues, intellectual challenge and altruism.

Physicians face unique stressors in the workplace, but there are ways to handle these challenges. November 12, Does my child have ADHD, or are they just being a kid? November 11, November 09, November 06, November 04, Inspire Me. A multimethod study of compassion fatigue, burnout, and self care in clinicians working with trauma survivors in Traumatology , 14, 2 Saakvitne, K. New York: W. Shapiro, S. Teaching self-care to caregivers: effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on the mental health of therapists in training.

Training and Education in Professional Psychology , Vol. This text was subsequently adapted and expanded for two publications: Mathieu, F. New York: Routledge. What is Compassion Fatigue? What is the difference between compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and burnout? These three terms are complementary and yet different from one another. Read through the examples below and notice if you recognize elements of these scenarios in yourself: If my job as an administrative assistant to a parole officer is to read the files of violent sex offenders, I may be secondarily traumatized and deeply disturbed by the content of what I read.

What are some of the signs of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma? What can be done? This includes: Access to a supportive, flexible manager who is open to regular workload assessments in order to reduce trauma exposure Leadership from a manager who encourages staff to attend ongoing professional education and who provides timely and good quality supervision as needed. Employees who had more control over their schedule reported a higher rate of job satisfaction overall.

Reducing hours spent working directly with traumatized individuals was the single most effective way of reducing VT. Personal Strategies: The top personal strategies identified includes: Developing and maintaining a strong social support both at home and at work Increased self-awareness through mindfulness meditation and narrative work such as journaling Regular self care which is unfortunately often an afterthought for busy helping professionals Remember that compassion fatigue is a process that develops over time and so is healing from its effects.

What if I think that someone close to me is suffering from CF? I am a manager, how can I help support my staff? Introduce the topic of Compassion Fatigue at a staff meeting: Discuss it as an occupational hazard, something that happens to those who do their jobs well, and have a group discussion about ways to deal with it around the workplace such as peer supervision and clinical debriefings.

Your staff may have other great suggestions. Recent research shows that those are the two main areas of work that most significantly contribute to employee stress and illness. Offer professional development for your staff : Include topics related to trauma-informed care and other skill-building strategies.

Unfortunately, one of the first things to get cut when there are budget restrictions are education, training and backfill to release staff to attend workshops. Research clearly demonstrates that this is short-sighted. Helping professionals need time to learn new skills and opportunities to attend refreshers.

Offer counselling: Include counselling as part of your benefits package and encourage people to use the service. Be sure to use non-judgmental language and explain all aspects related to confidentiality. Bring in Compassion Fatigue specialists : Recruit the experts to speak to your team or provide opportunities for staff to attend a compassion fatigue workshop.

Many managers we speak to tend to be quite isolated and have very stressful jobs themselves. Join an online support group for managers.