Compassion Fatigue

Man with sad expression and head resting in his handsCompassion fatigue, also known as second-hand shock and secondary stress reaction, describes a type of stress that results from helping or wanting to help those who are traumatized or under significant emotional duress.

Understanding Compassion Fatigue

Although compassion fatigue is sometimes called burnout, it is a slightly different concept. Unlike burnout, compassion fatigue is highly treatable and may be less predictable. The onset of compassion fatigue can be sudden, whereas burnout usually emerges over time. Additionally, severe cases of burnout sometimes require the person experiencing it to change jobs or occupations, but often measures can be taken to prevent or treat compassion fatigue before a change in work environment is required.

Compassion fatigue can be a precursor or a symptom of other stressors. Because therapists are trained to utilize compassion and empathy in order for therapy to be effective, they are particularly vulnerable to emotional stress and compassion fatigue. For therapists, compassion fatigue can have ethical and legal implications if left untreated, especially if they are providing therapeutic services that are not benefiting those under their care in therapy.

What Are Some of the Symptoms of Compassion Fatigue?

Compassion fatigue can take a physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional toll on people who experience it. Common symptoms of compassion fatigue include:

  • Chronic physical and emotional exhaustion
  • Depersonalization
  • Feelings of inequity toward the therapeutic or caregiver relationship
  • Irritability
  • Feelings of self-contempt
  • Difficulty sleeping
  • Weight loss
  • Headaches
  • Poor job satisfaction

Who Is at Risk for Developing Compassion Fatigue?

DC2-04-compassion fatigueCompassion fatigue can affect a wide range of professions and caregivers. It tends to be common among professionals who regularly work in a helping or healing capacity.

Therapists, for example, may experience compassion fatigue when the stories and experiences of the people they meet in therapy start to affect their lives outside of work.

Nurses, because empathy and compassion are demanded of them on a daily basis, may experience compassion fatigue when dealing with heavy workloads, excessive demands of patients, and long hours.

The American Bar Association says that even lawyers, especially those practicing in areas that may require them to visit accident scenes, view graphic evidence, or deal with reports of trauma, have a high susceptibility to compassion fatigue.

Several factors can put therapists at higher risk for developing compassion fatigue:

  • Specializing in therapy that introduces them to extreme issues nearly every session.
  • Being physically threatened by a person under their therapeutic care.
  • A person under their care dying by suicide.
  • Providing therapeutic services to someone considered dangerous.
  • Working exclusively with people who experience depression and/or child abuse.
  • Specializing in treating death, grief, and bereavement.
  • Providing therapy for someone who has experienced the death of a child or who has a dying child.

How Can Compassion Fatigue Be Prevented?

Practicing self-awareness and self-monitoring to recognize changes in behavior, work, and life outside of work is the first step to preventing compassion fatigue. Developing either informal or formal supervisory and mentor relationships within your work environment can also help you spot when you are being affected by compassion fatigue. These practices can also help prevent compassion fatigue:

How Is Compassion Fatigue Treated?

It can be easy for therapists and caregivers to enter a cycle of blaming themselves for not having what it takes to do their jobs when the symptoms of compassion fatigue arise. Instead of entering a cycle of self-doubt, it can be helpful to focus your energies on:

  • L.R. Knost quote about compassiona fatigue.Talking about feelings with a trusted person and/or a mental health professional.
  • Learning more about compassion fatigue and how it affects people.
  • Making a commitment to regularly exercise.
  • Developing a healthy diet.
  • Getting restful sleep.
  • Developing hobbies different from work.
  • Developing positive coping strategies.
  • Reaching out to support groups and networks.

Often, people experiencing compassion fatigue will seek the professional support of a mental health clinician to help them overcome difficult thoughts and emotions and focus on healthy coping mechanisms.

References:

  1. American Bar Association. (2014, July 14). Compassion Fatigue. Retrieved July 30, 2014, from http://www.americanbar.org/groups/lawyer_assistance/resources/compassion_fatigue.html
  2. Lombardo, B., Eyre, C., (2011). Compassion Fatigue: A Nurse’s Primer. OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing Vol. 16, No. 1, Manuscript 3.
  3. Negash, S., & Sahin, S. (2011). COMPASSION FATIGUE IN MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPY: IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPISTS AND CLIENTS. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 37(1), 1-13. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/846784972?accountid=1229
  4. Pfifferling, J., & Gilley, K. Overcoming Compassion Fatigue. Family Practice Management, 7(4), 39-44.

Last Updated: 02-10-2020

  • 24 comments
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  • Donna S

    December 5th, 2016 at 2:05 PM

    I really enjoyed reading your article. It was interesting and easily understood. I am requesting that our agency, Alabama Department of Human Resources, Office of Child Welfare Training , be allowed to use this information as part of our session on Compassion Fatigue, Trauma Exposure Response and Burnout. This information would be shared with new child welfare workers in the training room. Thanks for your consideration.

  • The GoodTherapy.org Team

    December 6th, 2016 at 11:13 AM

    Hi Donna,
    Thank you for your interest! Please refer to the email we sent in response to your inquiry.

    Kind regards,
    The Editorial Team
    GoodTherapy.org

  • Lorna T

    February 9th, 2020 at 7:08 AM

    The article is useful. The term ‘committed suicide,’ is not. It is outdated and reflects value and laws that have long passed. These include the belief that suicide is a sin ( religious) or a crime ( legal.). A person who is suicidal is often committed to life but cannot find the resources to realize that desire. Please edit the article and use the term ‘died by suicide’ Thankyou ( written by a mom who lost her son to suicide)

  • Lori

    March 7th, 2017 at 5:50 PM

    Excellent article. I would like to use this for teaching purposes. I was unable to print a clean copy using the print icon. Would you be willing to share? Thanks.

  • The GoodTherapy.org Team

    March 8th, 2017 at 10:36 AM

    Hi Lori,

    Thank you for reporting the issue with the print icon! Our programming team is looking into it. In the meantime, we emailed a .pdf of this page to the gmail address you used to comment. If for some reason you don’t get the file, feel free to email our editorial team at editor@goodtherapy.org.

    Kind regards,

    The Editorial Team
    GoodTherapy.org

  • Lum

    April 17th, 2017 at 1:01 PM

    Nobody ever talks about compassion fatigue that arises from directing too much compassion toward a friend, rather than a family member… It almost seems like I am the only human being in the world facing this problem… In this regard, I’d love if you could answer to my comment and/or direct me toward more appropriate resources.
    Thanks a lot!

  • Tova

    November 9th, 2017 at 11:27 PM

    Friends are family we choose for ourselves…

  • Lum

    November 10th, 2017 at 2:29 PM

    Saying friends are family we choose for ourselves equals in the end to saying that friends = family. Which is as true 1 = one, totally true but completely useless when trying to understand why you choose to establish a wrong relationship with “either one”.
    In reality the case of wrong friendship can be much much more relevant when analyzing the cause of this problem, exactly because it was you who chose the wrong person, and no one else.

  • KER

    September 26th, 2019 at 5:54 AM

    Lum, Just wanted to share with you that you’re not alone in your concern about
    choosing to develop friendships that become unbalanced in the area of compassion. I’m sitting here this morning researching counselors in my area so that I can choose one to work with and begin exploring exactly this issue.

  • Tami M.

    November 8th, 2017 at 3:39 AM

    Liked the quote by L.R Knos. t Could you please let know where to look for it.
    Thanks a lot!

  • Tania B

    January 16th, 2018 at 7:58 AM

    I’d like to have permission to use this information in trainings.

  • The GoodTherapy.org Team

    January 16th, 2018 at 12:08 PM

    Hi Tania,
    Thank you for reaching out. You are welcome to use this article in your training. All we ask is that you please properly cite where the content came from (GoodTherapy.org).

    Best wishes,
    Support Team
    GoodTherapy.org

  • jennifer

    July 25th, 2019 at 10:15 AM

    Hello!
    I would love to use this in training as well, if you could send a copy.
    Thank you in advance.
    Jennifer

  • The GoodTherapy.org Team

    July 25th, 2019 at 12:28 PM

    Hi, Jennifer! Thank you for reaching out. You are welcome to use this article in your training. All we ask is that you please properly cite where the content came from (GoodTherapy.org).

    Best wishes,
    Support Team
    GoodTherapy.org

  • Amber

    September 30th, 2019 at 9:01 PM

    Please if possible Good Therapy could you do an article on compassion fatigue among teacher? This concern I feel is often swept under the rug as it seen as if teacher are not human and cannot express or feel emotions related to compassion fatigue, burnout and secondary trauma.
    Thank you,
    Amber

  • James

    December 12th, 2019 at 10:03 PM

    Hi, I’m a full-time minister for a congregation of 280. I’ve been serving in this position for well over 18 years. I’ve already experienced most if not all of these symptoms and I’m still in my forties. I’m concerned because I have two school-aged children and I’m always too exhausted to give them and my wife the best of me. Thank you for this article and the helpful information.

  • Sarah

    March 3rd, 2020 at 2:10 PM

    I heard a news about it then i googled it until i came here. Its the condition that i am experiencing now that i dont know how to address or to process.
    Thanks for this information.

  • Saeed

    July 13th, 2020 at 9:26 PM

    Thanks For Create Such Kind Of Informative Website. All Content Is Relevant To Your Subject. Keep It Continue, Because Your Website And Subject Is Meaningful For The Users. After See Your Niche I Have Recommended Your Website With My Friends Also.
    Mental Health awareness is great job. amazing Articles

  • Jonathan

    July 27th, 2020 at 11:06 AM

    Great

  • Alisha

    September 15th, 2020 at 8:03 PM

    I have found CF to be a concern of mine for the first time in my nursing career. It has been since the pandemic. I wonder how everyone else is coping?

  • Sandra

    January 27th, 2021 at 11:37 AM

    Compassion fatigue is a very real thing for me. It’s been a year since I was a safe house manager for a local ministry that ministers to women who are caught up in sex trafficking/prostitution, and addiction. During the past year my health and emotional well being plummeted ending me up in the hospital twice for health issues I believe were related to compassion fatigue. I so appreciate this article. It helped me to better understand compassion fatigue and identify it in my own life.

  • Gloria

    May 30th, 2021 at 11:42 PM

    I am a Hairstylist and I most definitely came home during Covid feeling like the life had been sucked out of me. People were so depressed and angry. I have a clientele so these are people I have done for years but the struggle has been real. I really tried hard to cheer up my clients that were depressed and I tried hard to bite my tongue to the ones that were rude and mean telling myself I don’t know what their struggle is to be making them behave this way. Bottom line when u r in any sort of human services industry it can be so emotionally draining. I actually for the 1st time in my life said I don’t make enough $ to be treated this way and I’m getting to a no shit tolerance but I bit my tounge and honestly took peoples abuse knowing I did nothing wrong they are unhappy and misdirecting. Still it doesn’t make it easy going home from work feeling like the life has been sucked out of u and I’m just a Hairstylist this just shouldn’t be. Treat your stylists kindly ladies because they do care and working in a face mask behind a blow dryer doing physical labor and the new cleaning expectations they aren’t getting paid more to do more and it’s allot to handle at times. Thankyou for your article I’m going to show it to my co-workers who are in burnout mode.

  • Jayne

    March 17th, 2022 at 4:01 PM

    Compassion Farigue is high amongst parents of children with seen and unseen disabilities.

    We don’t get a break fighting for therapy or treatment for our children, balancing life challenges and raising siblings without a disability and ensuring they are not forgotten, holding down a job, often with employers that have no empathy, no break from the meltdowns or the full time care needed as no one will kids sit high level need children or it is unaffordable if it exists. Many of us have tiny friendship groups as we haven’t the time or energy to maintain friendships or people walk away from us not understanding our challenges.

    Covid isolated our family even more and meltdowns and trying to home school without One to One Teaching Assistance support was impossible. Relationships are under so much pressure that we have no time for each other let alone to essential care for ourselves.

    I wish more people would recognise Compassion Fatigue is a very real illness for parents and carers or children and adults for whom life is challenging and to which we get no break from

  • Maria

    May 18th, 2022 at 12:26 AM

    Very important topic. 1. Have a place to debrief/rest for even a few moments during the day. 2. Select a song or piece of music which is your relax-song. Get to know every phrase, pause, rest, note. 3. Try to catch potential overload by sharing situation with someone who cares (may not be a co-worker). 4. If you have a faith — whether a Supreme Being, Dharma, nature, humanity, Art — immerse yourself in your off hours. 5. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Peace and hope to all. Maria. 18 May 2022

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