“We need help. We are empty”
By By Kim Ballantine, Industrial Psychologist and COO of Camber Coaching
I have heard the same statement from oncology nurses, doctors, teachers, and persons in the Social Justice and Human Rights (SJHR) sector. What is this person referring to? I believe it is compassion fatigue – a combination of burnout and exposure to the ongoing vicarious or secondary trauma of others. Compassion fatigue, simply defined, occurs when your emotional expenditure exceeds your ability to recover. This has significant negative psychological and physical consequences and attacks the core values and purpose that brought the person into a helping profession in the first place. Compassion fatigue is therefore a significant occupational hazard and can be linked to low resilience, low compassion satisfaction, high secondary traumatic stress, higher error rates, and more frequent use of maladaptive coping mechanisms. The SJHR sector in particular is known for high levels of burnout and compassion fatigue with some studies reporting up to 73% of employees suffering (1). Why are the figures so high? In her book, The Lifelong Activist, Hillary Rettig writes “I believe that progressive activists are the world’s most precious resource. We tackle the most difficult and important problems including hunger, war, disease, poverty, violence, cruelty, and exploitation, and work to further humanity’s evolution in the direction of compassion and kindness. Conservatives may create more wealth, but we create more of the values, including justice, equality, and freedom, that make life worth living.” (2)
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Dec 2022 | Collective Action Magazine
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