Compassion Fatigue, Vicarious Trauma, and Burnout
While we are going to focus on compassion fatigue, it’s also important to know about vicarious trauma and burnout, and their differences.
What are they?
Compassion Fatigue is emotional and physical exhaustion leading to a diminished ability to empathize or feel compassion for others. It can lead to a sense of apathy toward a mentee’s suffering, as a result of exposure to it.
Vicarious Trauma is emotional residue of exposure that mentors have from working with mentees as they are hearing their stories and become witnesses to pain, fear, and other emotions that their mentees have endured.
Burnout is a physical and emotional exhaustion; a depletion of physical and emotional resources, over a long period of time.
Compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and burnout all have related symptoms and they can coexist.
It is important to learn to recognize the signs and symptoms in yourself and speak up if you need support! You can’t pour from an empty cup – we have to take care of ourselves in order to take care of others.
What to look for?
Emotional Symptoms
Feeling overwhelmed, hopeless, helpless, or powerless when hearing about others’ suffering
Feeling a loss of self-worth and emotional modulation
Feeling anger, irritability, sadness, and/or anxiety
Feeling detached from surroundings or physical or emotional experience
Feeling emotionally, psychologically, or physically exhausted or numb
Having less empathy
Feeling either hypersensitive or insensitive to emotional issues
Having less tolerance for stress
Suffering from depression
Behavioral Symptoms
Self-isolating, withdrawing, avoidance (avoiding stressors and difficult emotions rather than dealing with them)
Using unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as self-medicating, or eating too much or too little
Having relationship conflicts
Feeling less productive or efficient at work
Having reduced pleasure in activities once enjoyed and reduced satisfaction at work
Being short-tempered or driving aggressively
Inability to empathize
Physical Symptoms
Experiencing nausea, dizziness, or headaches
Difficulty sleeping
Being tense, agitated, or on edge
Cognitive Symptoms
Thinking or dwelling constantly about the suffering of others
Having constant self-blame or thoughts of “I should have or I could have done more”
Having belief system changes (such as belief about self, others, world, future) or meaning in life
Having a reduced sense of personal and occupational accomplishment or efficacy
Having difficulty concentrating, focusing, or making decisions