- Emily Barber
- Wednesday, September 14, 2022
It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic prompted a shift in our professional lives, often by highlighting and exacerbating existing workplace challenges that many people had previously been muddling through. Among these problems is compassion fatigue.
Simply put, according to an article from the American Psychological Association, compassion fatigue is “the psychological cost of healing [or helping] others.” People in helping professions – those who provide health or education services, such as teachers, social workers, nurses or doctors, and therapists, to name a few – may develop compassion fatigue over time due to the caretaking nature of their jobs. Repeated exposure to other people’s traumatic experiences can lead to compassion fatigue, which is why some people call the resulting emotional drain “secondary traumatic stress.” You may not have experienced the trauma personally, but when work demands that you care about those who have, work begins to take a toll.
Compassion fatigue might look or feel like:
– Difficulty feeling empathy
– Lack of interest in work that would normally be engaging
– New feelings of anxiety
– Overall irritability or anger
– Changes to sleep or appetite
– Increased and misplaced self-criticism, according to a recent study
If you’re thinking this sounds like burnout (another pandemic buzz word), you are in the ballpark. Excessive hours, unreasonable or unclear expectations, and lack of workplace support are among the factors that can contribute to either burnout or compassion fatigue. However, burnout occurs in all types of professions, not just helping ones. While people experiencing burnout often decide to switch jobs or careers guilt-free, helping professionals with intense compassion fatigue may feel that they should commit to the work and just do better. “They typically think they should be trying harder; they may believe their burnout is somehow their fault,” published Pathways, a mental health services provider, in January 2022.
Workplaces and individual employees must consider their situations to determine whether they are experiencing (or at risk for) compassion fatigue, burnout, or both. Some tactics can address both, but the nature of compassion fatigue means that helping professionals face unique challenges. The secondary trauma at the root of compassion fatigue is unavoidable in many jobs. For example, teachers should care about their students, and yet “that means being exposed to the traumas students bring into school every day,” says the National Education Association. Most difficult jobs are worth doing, and employees deserve supportive environments that make it possible to do difficult jobs for the long term.
Many well-intentioned organizations are highly driven to encourage good mental health among their employees, but even close or casual workplaces should maintain professional boundaries. Individual care is always something that people get to choose for themselves, and whatever healing a person might need is likely best accomplished outside the workplace.
So, what should workplaces be doing? Install equitable structures and cultivate a culture that allows employees to care for themselves on their terms. This can look like:
– Excellent insurance coverage that includes mental health services
– Flexibility in work hours and remote work
– Plentiful paid sick and vacation time (and encouragement to use it!)
– Increased organization-wide holidays
– Transparency and accountability from leaders
– Compassionate protocols for mistakes
There are many tools online to help you get started assessing your own work well-being. One option is the ProQOL (Professional Quality of Life) Health Measure. Although the questions in this assessment are worded for individuals in healthcare, they are general enough that people in many industries could use this tool as a starting point.
For tips on individual self-care, check out another post: Simple Ways to Practice Self-Care in the Workplace
Also check out these additional resources:
When Helping Hurts
Cultivating Professional Resilience in Direct Practice
The Empath's Survival Guide
Self-care for Tough Times
Compassion Fatigue and Burnout in Nursing
This article is NOT medical advice. Compassion fatigue is a well-documented challenge that occurs in some professions, and the purpose of this blog is to share basic information. Individuals should take medical questions to their healthcare provider.
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