This is the first article in a series addressing the current challenges of a specific profession. For the next several months, we will be discussing the many challenges that professional educators are presently facing.
There is crisis in the American Education system. Teachers are streaming out of the profession in record numbers. There may be any number of factors creating this exodus, not the least of which may be categorized as “Compassion Fatigue.” Compassion Fatigue is a relatively new concept in psychology, initially applied to an observed syndrome noted among healthcare workers. It is a unique form of burnout which, if left unaddressed, can negatively impact teachers personally and hinder student development.
Traditional burnout usually stems from being overworked or overwhelmed by responsibility. Too many responsibilities and not enough time to complete them. Compassion fatigue, however, is rooted in empathy. When helping others, those who are truly empathetic become overwhelmed by the trauma of others and take that trauma on. A person suffering from compassion fatigue feels they have nothing left to give, the tank has been drained, simply because they care too much, and the trauma is endless. They want to keep helping, but the wall has been hit and they are simply unable to due to the negative exposure of others’ negative, stressful experiences.
When compassion fatigue was originally observed and classified, it was the result of working directly with victims of disasters, trauma, or illness, especially in the healthcare industry. It is now considered that Individuals working in any helping profession are also at risk for experiencing compassion fatigue
For the past several years, young people in the United States have been forced to contend with multiple life altering traumatic events and circumstances, not the least of which are Covid, quarantine, social media, the opioid epidemic, etc. This barrage of negative influences creates greater stress in their students’ lives. The students may not be emotionally equipped to deal with many of these scenarios, which leads to greater stress, anxiety and acting out. The teachers absorb that stress.
Teachers’ compassion fatigue is based on the premise that they actively give empathy, and in the process of providing emotional support to their students, they suffer secondary trauma, which reduces their ability and interest in empathizing further. It is a negative, never-ending cycle of giving.
By helping teachers identify compassion fatigue, learn self-care, adjust self-cognition, and clarify the boundaries of their professional competence, teachers’ compassion fatigue can be alleviated.