Compassion Fatigue: When Counselors and Other Helpers Don ’t Make Time for Self-Care

It has been called many things: compassion fatigue, empathy overload, secondary traumatic stress, and vicarious trauma.  It is what some counselors, therapists, first responders, doctors, nurses and other professionals or volunteers experience when they open their hearts every day to absorb the trauma and pain of others, while trying to help guide them through to healing. To be a great support person it requires the ability to have empathy and with that comes the risk of experiencing physical, mental and spiritual exhaustion. While compassion fatigue can happen when helpers are unable to replenish and restore emotionally and physically (Figley, 1982), vicarious trauma is the shift you experience mentally from compassion fatigue (Perlman and Saakvitne, 1995). This shift has been identified as the altering of your perceptions and feelings towards the world around you. An example of this is police officers who have a hard time seeing the good in the world after years of helping victims of crime. Or the crisis counselor whose faith in humanity begins to deteriorate after supporting people in crisis for many years. You could say that compassion fatigue is the precursor to vicarious trauma that has been going on for too long. Many people don’t recognize the signs of compassion fatigue. Signs of Compassion Fatigue can include: Mood changes Exhaustion both mentally and physically Sleeping issues Feeling burnt out Irritability Unable to turn off the work mind Depression and anxie...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: General Grief and Loss Personal Psychology Stress Trauma Treatment Compassion Fatigue empathy overload Exhaustion Secondary Traumatic Stress vicarious trauma Source Type: blogs