Title: Defining Compassion Fatigue, Vicarious Trauma and Burnout
Headings: What is Compassion Fatigue?
What is Compassion Fatigue?
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What is the difference between compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and burnout?
Example:
What are some of the signs of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma?
For more information, check out this article Warning signs of Vicarious Trauma/Secondary Traumatic Stress and Compassion Fatigue
What factors contribute to CF/VT and Burnout?
The Individual:
The Situation:
What can be done?
Working in a Healthy Organization:
Personal Strategies:
What if those strategies aren’t enough?
What if I think that someone close to me is suffering from CF?
I am a manager, how can I help support my staff?
Continue reading: Warning Signs of Vicarious Trauma, Secondary Traumatic Stress and Compassion Fatigue
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Content: or the full gamut in between (such as working with clients who are chronically in despair, witnessing people’s inability to improve their very difficult life circumstances or feeling helpless in the face of poverty and emotional anguish). The work of helping requires professionals to open their hearts and minds to their clients and patients – unfortunately, this very process of empathy is what makes helpers vulnerable to being profoundly affected and even possibly damaged by their work. What is the difference between compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and burnout? These three terms are complementary and yet different from one another. While Compassion Fatigue (CF) refers to the profound emotional and physical erosion that takes place when helpers are unable to refuel and regenerate, the term Vicarious trauma (VT) was coined by Pearlman & Saakvitne (1995) to describe the profound shift in world view that occurs in helping professionals when they work with clients who have experienced trauma. Helpers notice that their fundamental beliefs about the world are altered and possibly damaged by being repeatedly exposed to traumatic material. Burnout is a term that has been used since the early 1980s describe the physical and emotional exhaustion that workers can experience when they have low job satisfaction and feel powerless and overwhelmed at work. However, burnout does not necessarily mean that our view of the world has been damaged, or that we have lost the ability to feel compassion for others. Most importantly, burnout can be fairly easily resolved: changing jobs can provide immediate relief to someone suffering from job-related burnout.