Empathy is crucial for meaningful relationships with patients1. Healthcare providers know that “bearing with the suffering of others” is an essential part of patient care2,3. Ironically, while empathic ability allows healthcare providers to notice the pain of their patients, this ability is also linked to the susceptibility to distress or compassion fatigue6,7. Compassion fatigue has been defined as ‘‘the formal caregiver’s reduced capacity or interest in being empathic and is ‘the natural consequent behaviors and emotions resulting from knowing about a traumatizing event experienced or suffered by a person’’7. Compassion fatigue can be seen as a form of burnout, as a secondary traumatic stress, associated with the ‘‘cost of caring’’2. Regulatory mechanisms must operate in people who are in contact with individuals who are in states of suffering in order to prevent their distress from impairing their ability to help5. If healthcare providers fail to regulate their emotions adequately in their interactions with their patients, they may experience feelings of being emotionally drained overtime8. In this context, supporting the mental health of healthcare providers by …show more content…
More recently, “third-wave therapies”17 address emotional regulation and emotional confrontation and are either partially or wholly based on mindfulness. Mindfulness has been defined as “the quality of awareness that includes the ability to pay attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally”18. Mindfulness may result in enhanced levels of acceptances of one’s experiences19,20. In contrast to habitually responding with avoidance strategies, adopting a stance of acceptance toward distressing thoughts and feelings (e.g. anxiety) would be expected to change the relationship with those mental
This is noted because the words for “mindfulness” themselves are varied and textured and come in many different definitions, as well as narratives. Having noted that, it is interesting to see that the same thing can be found in the Western tradition of understanding mindfulness in the third-wave psychotherapies.
Concept analysis seeks to determine structure, function, attributes, and characteristics of a concept which serves to provide common understanding of the term so that future research endeavors find the concept clearly communicable and increasingly measurable. (Smego, 2010.) Compassion Fatigue (CF) within the nursing profession needs to be probed more critically and monitored for trends among certain subspecialties of nursing. Compassion fatigue or otherwise known as Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder is clinically defined as, “The emotional residue or strain of exposure to working with those suffering from the consequences of traumatic events. It differs from burn-out, but can co-exist.
Compassion fatigue is a growing problem for nurses and professional caregivers. When nurses witness pain, fear, sickness, disease and even death they can start to feel the same pain and suffering that their patients experience. This can lead to compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is phrase used to describe “the stress resulting from helping or wanting to help a traumatized person” (Tellie, 2008). It is often referred to as secondary traumatic stress syndrome and can lead to lack of empathy and caring emotions; two things that are needed in order to effectively care for sick and suffering patients. In this paper, the author will examine the five concepts of compassion fatigue and related symptoms and warning signs, explain the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the caregiver and identify coping strategies and resources available to caregivers.
Compassion fatigue is a complex form of secondary traumatic stress often experienced by nurses and other health care professionals due to their stressful work environment. Compassion fatigue is extreme exhaustion that penetrates all aspects of one’s wellbeing, including the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual aspects of life (Murphy-Ende, 2012). Dealing with children who are both chronically ill or in palliative care is known to be extremely stressful. Not only are nurses faced with dealing with the physical symptoms of their patients, they also must attend to their fragile emotional state and be of assistance to their anxious family members. Oncologic diagnoses can put a child and their family into turmoil. Since the nurse is the first, and most constant point of contact, they are often the ones who become responsible for ensuring well-being of the entire family throughout the ...
...nate in their work and genuinely care for their patients, but to do this they must set professional and personal boundaries and be aware of the effect pain; trauma and death may have on their lives. According to Bush (2009), nurses must learn forgiveness and love themselves to prevent and overcome compassion fatigue. “Nurses should treat themselves with the empathy and compassion that they give others” (Bush, 2009, p. 27). Nurses should take time to nurture themselves by maintaining a healthy lifestyle and diet. They should also continue to participate in activities that they enjoy, get plenty of rest, and have a sense of self-awareness throughout their career. Additional resources are available to any caregiver to educate themselves on compassion fatigue at The Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project’s web site at http://www.compassionfatigue.org/index.html.
It can be related to feelings of hopelessness and lack of meaning, anxiety, decreased ability to concentrate, irritability, insomnia, emotional numbing, lack of empathy, and escapist activities (such a self-medicating with drugs and alcohol). This is in direct opposition to the idea that nurses would be responsive to an insightful of their clients needs. Dennis Portnoy wrote “Compassion fatigue was often triggered by patient care situations in which nurses believed that their actions would “not make a difference” or “never seemed to be enough”. He further elaborated in the article Burnout and compassion Fatigue that nurses who experienced this syndrome also did so because of systemic issues such as; overtime worked, high patient acuity, high patient census, heavy patient assignments, high acuity, overtime and extra workdays, personal issues, lack of energy and lack of experience (Portnoy, 2011). These issues, interfere with the nurses' ability to identify with the patient and to tune in to important issues and obscure symptoms. Once consideration is that nurses can use Orlando’s theory to identify and address their own needs and respond with the same level of consideration to their own needs in order to prevent a burn out
Besides, it is one of the work ethics in nursing .The nursing experts say that compassion is the heart of nursing and they advise that nursing students will develop this skill through their study periods. Compassion exceed the concept of simply sympathising with someone, but also involved a transfer of emotion likely to lead to helpful action’’ (.Baughan, Jacqui,Smith,Ann2013).I believe that in my future profession, my compassion skills will surely reduce patient anxiety and alleviate their pain as well as improve their progress through reassurance. “Compassion is an essential component of good nursing care and can be conveyed through smallest actions” (Katherine Curtis 2015).When I used work as a health care assistant in the United Kingdom I always try to spend a little time with my patients when I finished with my daily routines, in that small conversation I realised that it was a great relief for my patients from their physical as well as mental stressful situation. I believe that it is a good milestone for mine future
According to the College of Nurse of Ontario (2006), empathy is one of the five key components of the nurse-client relationship and is one of the most powerful tools. You don’t need to know how your patient feels to be empathetic but letting them know that you are trying to understand is a good start. It can be used to describe a variety of experiences and had been defined by emotional researchers “as the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling” (University of California, Berkeley). Having the ability to empathize doesn’t mean you will or that you are willing to help someone in need but it is an important first step towards a compassionate
Researchers such as Hayes and Strosahl (2005) defines acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) as an empirically based intervention technique from the cognitive behavior model of psychotherapy that employs mindfulness and acceptance methods mixed in various ways. Grounded within the practical concept of functional contextualism and based on the comprehensive idea of language and cognition, ACT is different from the normal or traditional cognitive behavioral therapy. The differences are manifested in the paradigm of instead of teaching people to control their emotions, ACT teaches them to acknowledge, accept and embrace the emotions and or feelings (Hayes, Louma, Bond, Masuda, & Lillis, 2006). Primarily, western traditions functions under the assumption of “healthy normality” which believes that humans are naturally psychologically healthy; however ACT contends that the “so-called” normal human mind is volatile and destructive. The nucleus concept of ACT is that psychological based suffering is caused by experimental averting, cognitive mess, and psychological inflexibility that lead to malfunctions in taking necessary behavioral steps in agreement with core values (Hayes et al, 2006).
In order to fully understand the problem on compassion fatigue and caregiver burnout, the definition of each as well as distinction between both should be discussed. Firstly, burnout is described differently from that of being depressed or overworked. It is a process wherein a person is in a state of mental fatigue, empty and drained of energy (Espeland, 2006). For Maslach (1982), individuals who interact with people on a daily basis are likely to experience burnout which is thought to be a syndrome of emotional fatigue, depersonalization and a reduced sense o...
Compassion fatigue is defined as “The emotional residue or strains of exposure to working with those suffering from the consequences of traumatic events” (The American Institute of Stress, n.d.). Compassion fatigue occurs when healthcare workers, especially those who work with patients one-on-one daily, feel the emotional stress of their jobs starting to wear on them. For example, a person who works with a cancer patient and watches that patient worsen and finally pass away, may experience great emotional pain. Dealing with stressful situations over time could also cause compassion fatigue. One way to prevent compassion fatigue is through implementation of Schwartz rounds. “Schwartz rounds are not 'problem solving'. Instead, the focus is on the emotional experiences of staff caring for patients and they allow staff to explore, in an environment that is safe and confidential, situations that confront them.” (Thompson, A. (2013). Schwartz rounds are like support groups for healthcare workers. They allow healthcare providers to share their struggles as caregivers and solve their strugg...
Empathy is the ‘capacity’ to share and understand another person’s ‘state of mind’ or their emotion. It is an experience of the outlook on emotions of another person being within themselves (Ioannides & Konstantikaki, 2008). There are two different types of empathy: affective empathy and cognitive empathy. Affective empathy is the capacity in which a person can respond to another person’s emotional state using the right type of emotion. On the other hand, cognitive empathy is a person’s capacity to understand what someone else is feeling. (Rogers, Dziobek, Hassenstab, Wolf & Convit, 2006). This essay will look at explaining how biology and individual differences help us to understand empathy as a complex, multi-dimensional trait.
The definition of personality deals with certain pattens of behavior, thoughts, and feelings. These patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings stem from combinations of various traits. In order to understand a full personality, then each trait must be examined. One trait that can be examined further is empathy. It is important to know what empathy is, it’s origins, dynamics, correlates, manifestations, advantages, and disadvantages, in order to examine its development, and apply it to my own life. The answers to these questions also allows a deeper study of one personality trait that contributes to a full personality. Knowing the individual traits of a person allows the whole personality o be better evaluated.
Living in the present allows me to live and tend to my thoughts and emotions that I often suppress or ignore. Working as a school counselor, I think that I will use mindfulness to help students with anxiety, behavior problems, and depression. I hope to use mindfulness in the future as I teach students how to use mindfulness in their own lives so that they can exist in the present and connect their mind with their body. Through using mindfulness in sessions with students and possibly in the classroom setting, I will give them a tool to help manage and become more self-aware of the thoughts and emotions they experience so they can learn how to better tend, express and manage them. However, without practicing mindfulness myself I would not have understood its power in the work of my client’s
Recently, inhabitants of many societies and communities are demonstrating a unwillingness to care about their neighbors, and with this comes changes in those societies.