Helping the Helper: Preventing Burnout and Compassion Fatigue
Allison Osmer, Masters Level Clinician
Working in a helping profession can bring fulfillment and satisfaction, especially when we can see the positive impact we can have on others. However, helping professions also comes with many unique challenges, including burnout and compassion fatigue. The weight of responsibility that comes with caring for others, in addition to the constant exposure to their struggles, may take a toll on our well-being and potentially diminishes the quality of care we can provide.
One way to prevent burnout, compassion fatigue, and stress is to improve psychological flexibility, a concept developed from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Psychological flexibility refers to our ability to adapt, persist, and shift behavior to align with our values, even when we face difficult thoughts, emotions, and situations. Furthermore, research indicates that higher psychological flexibility among helping professionals is correlated with increased job satisfaction and reduced burnout and compassion fatigue.
How to Improve Psychological Flexibility
Psychological Flexibility can be improved by learning and practicing the following concepts of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT):
Mindfulness Practices
First, develop awareness of the present moment and your current experiences. This can be done by practicing mindfulness, which means non-judgmentally noticing your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations.
Acceptance of Emotions
Second, respond to your emotions in a more open and accepting way. Avoid controlling or changing how you feel and allow your feelings to come and go. Some ways to practice accepting emotions include:
Practice slowing down and naming emotions.
Distance yourself from the emotions. For example, instead of telling yourself, "I am anxious," say, "I am noticing the emotion of anxiety."
Practice the leaves on a stream meditation. This involves imagining your emotions as leaves on a stream. Watch them come and go without judgment or attachment.
Defusing from Negative Thoughts
When a negative or distressing thought emerges, defusing our thoughts means creating distance from yourself and your thoughts. Strategies that help us with this process include:
Externalizing thoughts by writing them down on paper.
Create distance from thoughts by adding the phrase, "I'm having the thought that…".
Clarification of Values
Identify and clarify what brings meaning and fulfillment into your life. What do you value and want your life to be about? Some examples of values are kindness, integrity, meaningful work, family, community, and others. If you are still trying to figure out your values, using a values card sort can help identify what is most important to you.
Take Committed Action
Once your values are clear, you can start making behavioral changes that align with who you want to be and what you want your life to mean.
Seek Support
While understanding these concepts is an important step improving psychological flexibility, seeking therapy can be a helpful place to practice these skills. Furthermore, therapy provides a non-judgmental space for individuals to navigate and process their emotions—particularly crucial for those in helping professions grappling with compassion fatigue and burnout.
Final Thoughts
While improving psychological flexibility is valuable for preventing burnout and compassion fatigue, it should be acknowledged that there are many factors that we cannot control that contribute to these issues. Working conditions, such as excess workloads, lack of resources, unfair treatment, and job insecurity, certainly play a role in our stress levels, and acknowledging this reality is important.
With that said, by improving our internal capacity to respond to stressors with flexibility and aligning our actions with our values, we empower ourselves to face our challenges head on. While we may not be able to control every external factor, we can control how we respond to them, and that can make all the difference in maintaining our well-being amid challenges, especially for those in helping professions.
