If you are a trauma specialist, you may have heard the terms “compassion fatigue,” “secondary posttraumatic stress” and “vicarious victimization.” Most commonly, practitioners speak of “burnout” and the majority who work with traumatized individuals have experienced one or all of these conditions from time to time.
Compassion fatigue has many faces, but these are some of the more common symptoms in mental health and healthcare professionals:
* Sadness and lack of pleasure in activities that were previously enjoyable
* Emotional and physical exhaustion
* Emotional outbursts
* Unresolved anger and conflicts
* Chronic ailments such as recurrent colds, stomach problems, and headaches
* Preoccupation and difficulty in concentration
* Denial of emotional stress and blaming of others for distress
* Inability to express emotions in a productive manner
* Isolation from others
* Compulsive behaviors (overspending, overeating, and other addictive activities)
* Nightmares, sleep disruption, and intrusive memories of traumatic events
So what do you do when you realize that you may have or be at risk for compassion fatigue? Just how do you keep going when your job includes providing trauma intervention for children, adults, and families on a daily basis? If you do not attend to the symptoms in a timely way, those symptoms eventually refuse to be ignored and emotional crisis occurs.
There are several steps you can take to address compassion fatigue right now. The first step is to reach out to others, including colleagues, to share your feelings and obtain support and validation. The other step begins with you—take the time to build in self-care and personal resilience-enhancement. Join an exercise class, take up yoga or meditation, and focus on a healthy diet. Most of all be kind to yourself, accept that you are not perfect, set good boundaries for work-related activities, and express your needs to others.
Finally, enhance your ability to deal with compassion fatigue through education such as McHenry’s upcoming workshop. One of the most well researched ways of reducing secondary posttraumatic stress reactions is through education. So take the opportunity to increase your awareness through learning and listening to the opportunity to increase your awareness through learning and listening to the stories of other professionals struggling with compassion fatigue’s effects.
Be well,
Cathy Malchiodi, PhD, LPAT, LPCC
traumainformedtherapy 