Restore your energy & recover from compassion fatigue & burnout

Compassion fatigue occurs when you have an emotional or psychological response as a result of being affected by the suffering of others. This response is often due to overwhelm, such as from working in a job that exposes you to many people facing trauma or oppression. Compassion fatigue occurs when your ability to empathize reaches its limit, and you struggle to remain present and effective at your job or role.

Burnout is similar to compassion fatigue because it also comes about due to overwhelm and high-stress work environments, but does not involve facing the suffering of others. Burnout typically comes from chronic workplace stress that exceeds the resources you have to respond to it.

Both compassion fatigue and burnout are individual responses that result from systemic factors, such as exploitative work environments, lack of community resources, and flawed systems, such as the healthcare and justice systems. Compassion fatigue and burnout aren’t necessarily your fault, but you can take steps to recover and care for yourself.

Signs of compassion fatigue include physical and emotional exhaustion, anger and irritability, increased use of alcohol or other substances, reduced ability to feel sympathy or empathy, and less satisfaction with work. In some situations, compassion fatigue can lead to depression, anxiety, or PTSD. You might notice yourself dreading work, feeling cynical about your work, having less patience with patients/clients/students, or feeling numb or detached.

Anyone who witnesses the pain and struggles of others can be affected by compassion fatigue. Some people who are particularly prone to compassion fatigue due to the nature of their work include healthcare workers, mental health care workers, first responders, teachers, and people working in the justice system. People who are responsible for the care of young children, disabled people, or the elderly can also develop compassion fatigue.

Yes, often people struggling with compassion fatigue experience symptoms of anxiety, depression, numbness, and other mental health challenges. Depending on your specific situation, you might find yourself thinking a lot about work and experience symptoms of worry and anxiety. Or you may find yourself detached and lacking motivation, which are symptoms of depression. Some people experience numbness, detachment, or other signs of being psychologically overwhelmed.

Secondary traumatic stress describes experiencing symptoms of PTSD due to facing the suffering of others, such as witnessing traumatic moments or hearing traumatic retellings from clients or patients. For example, you may work with domestic violence victims and begin to experience the trauma symptoms of hypervigilance and nightmares related to the stories you hear from your patients. Additional signs include hopelessness, sleeplessness, difficulty concentrating, or dissociation.

Vicarious trauma occurs when a person’s worldview and sense of self shift due to chronic exposure to traumatic content. For example, you may work with abused children and start to mistrust all adults, viewing everyone around you with a feeling that they all have the capacity to do terrible things. Signs of vicarious trauma include experiencing bystander guilt, having difficulty maintaining boundaries with patients/clients, loss of hope, increased cynicism, and becoming overly involved with clients/patients.

Therapy for compassion fatigue involves exploring how you arrived at a place of compassion fatigue. We’ll identify any internal factors, such as how you process distressing emotions and where you might lack boundaries with yourself or others. We’ll also examine external factors - naming anything beyond your control that is contributing, such as a lack of support or resources.

We’ll then explore ways to approach your distress with more self-compassion and inner support. Often, compassion fatigue involves reaching a level of “empathic distress,” and therapy can help guide you in responding to this distress with greater patience, care, and emotional intelligence. Often this leads to an exploration of your limits and capacity, and whether more boundaries or other changes are needed in your life to support healing.

Making space for recovery and healing is essential in recovering from compassion fatigue. You might explore carving out mini-breaks throughout your day to check in with your emotional self and respond to any distress that is coming up. You should also take time outside of work to promote healing. Many people experiencing compassion fatigue struggle with leaving work at work, and so it’s important to let go of work concerns and focus on other areas of your life to regain a sense of balance.

You may also benefit from shifting your mindset. Examine whether you are trying to overcompensate for factors outside your control that are contributing to your fatigue, such as understaffing, tight budgets, or mismanagement. Practice letting go of what is not yours to fix, and set boundaries when you are asked to do more than is possible within your work role.

This takes practice - the more you try out boundaries, the more you teach yourself that it’s safe enough to set boundaries with others. Often when we avoid setting boundaries, we reinforce guilty feelings, and setting boundaries is a way counteract that.

However, you may experience a period of guilt as you start to set boundaries. It’s important to name the guilt as just a feeling, and differentiate between true guilt that comes from your own values, and less authentic guilt that comes from societal messages or past experiences.

Start small - practice setting a boundary that feels within your grasp. For example, you could commit to an internal boundary with yourself that you won’t check your email after you leave the office. Later, you can graduate to setting boundaries with others, such as letting your supervisor know you can’t take on more responsibility at the moment.

This depends on a variety of factors, including the capacity of your workplace to accommodate your needs, the severity of your symptoms, and how long compassion fatigue has been developing within you.

While the word “fatigue” might imply that you simply need some rest, many people find that taking a long weekend to recover doesn’t cut it. Often, a longer process of making space for emotional processing, mindful self-care, and devising different boundaries and systems is required.

For most people experiencing compassion fatigue, I recommend setting aside at least 2-3 months for weekly therapy. If you’ve been developing compassion fatigue for a long time or have complicating factors such as traumatic experiences that have contributed to your fatigue, a longer-term process may be helpful to allow for healing.

If you’re noticing a difference in your level of presence, energy, and optimism in regards to your work, you may be developing burnout or compassion fatigue and could benefit from seeking therapy. Burnout and compassion fatigue are harder to recover from the longer you wait, so being proactive can be really helpful.

You also may notice more significant signs, such as dissociating, feeling numb, or experiencing nightmares and sleeplessness. These are definite signs to seek professional help.