Transcript Wellness Works

Wellness Works
PROTECTING THE CAREER
PRACTITIONER FROM
COMPASSION FATIGUE AND
BURNOUT
 Based on the work of Charles Figler and Francoise
Mathieu
 The compassion Fatigue workbook
 Webinar : Walking the Walk
 Are compassion fatigue and
burnout inevitable
consequences of our work?
 “The
expectation that we can be immersed in
suffering and loss daily and not be touched by
it is as unrealistic as expecting to be able to
walk through water without getting wet.
 This sort of denial is no small matter. The way we
deal with loss shapes our capacity to be present to
life more than anything else. The way we protect
ourselves form loss may be the way in which we
distance ourselves from life. We burn not because we
don’t care but because we don’t grieve. We burn out
because we’ve allowed our hearts to become so filled
with loss that we have no room left to care. Rachel Naomi
Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom, 1996
Our Caring Profession
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THE GOOD
Helping people meet goals
Matching the seeker to the job
Knowing people change their
lives for the better
Honouring their trust
Motivating with hope
Making a difference for my
community
Meeting the needs of our
employers
Working for our future
Helping people get the tools they
need to move forward
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THE BAD
Administration and record
keeping
Funders’ data bases
Government bureaucracy,
politics
Lack of control over budgets
Having to meet outcomes that
don’t match the needs of the folks
Never having enough time
Can’t meet all the needs
Little PD
Few places to refer for further
help, mental health, financial,
literacy
Internet job search process
Employers’ Hiring practices
The Ugly
Compassion Fatigue
 Related to caring about, taking
care of, or exposure to trauma
victims and others in need
 Created by caring about the
suffering of others
 Try to continue to give of
themselves and feel as though
they have failed at their
profession
 Gradual erosion of all the things
that keep us connected to others
in our caregiver role: empathy,
our hope, and our compassion,
for others and ourselves
Burnout
 Can result from any type of stress
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in any kind of setting
Low job satisfaction from feeling
powerless and overwhelmed at
work
Our view of the world has not
been damaged changed in a
negative way
Experience emotional withdrawal
and diminished empathy
Still retain the ability to feel
compassion for others
Makes us more vulnerable to CF
Compassion Fatigue is:
 The profound emotional and physical
erosion that takes place when helpers
are unable to refuel and regenerate
 A secondary traumatic stress disorder
 A set of symptoms, not a disease
 Can lead to a wide range of destructive
or unproductive behaviors
When I have CF I am:
 Over-reactive
 Unprofessional
 Having a saviour complex
 Overly invested in the outcomes and people
 Angry, unable to focus, no patience for my clients or
family members
 A ‘cranky fusspot’
 ‘No matter how much I do at work, I can’t do enough
to really make a difference’.
Sound Familiar?
 Bottled up emotions
 Impulse to rescue anyone in need
 Isolated from others
 Sadness, apathy
 Often feel the need to voice excessive complaints about
co workers and or management, increasing bitterness
about work
 Violate client boundaries, lack of respect of clients
 Intense psychological distress at exposure to cues that
symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
Symptoms, continued
 Lack of interest in self – care practices
 Reoccurring nightmares/flashbacks
 Persistent physical ailments such as allergies, colds,
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gastrointestinal problems
Lateness
Difficulty concentrating, mentally tired
Forgetfulness
Accident prone and error prone, judgment suffers
Hyper vigilance and exaggerated startle response
What Causes Compassion Fatigue?
 Placing the needs of others first
 Continual exposure to sad or traumatic stories or
events
 Unresolved past trauma and pain
 Lack of healthy professional skills
 Lack of self awareness that limits your growth and
potential
Causes - continued
 Giving care to others who are under stress
 Giving care to others when you are burnt out
 Lack of healthy life coping skills
 Lack of personal boundaries
 Inability to communicate your own needs
The ‘Fatigued’ At Work:
 Excessive amount of Worker’s Comp claims, stress
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leave
High absenteeism
Changes in co-workers’ relationships
Inability for teams to work well together
Staff challenges organizational rules and regulations
Aggressive behaviours between co-workers and
clients
Inability of staff to complete assigned tasks
At Work - continued
 Lack of flexibility with other staff
 Constant changes in organizational policies
 Rampant rumor and gossip
 Unhealthy competition between staff members
 Increasingly negative work environment
 Siege mentality
The Eventual Outcome?
 Mental health issues, depression, stress leave
 Social supports break down
 Eventually in order to recover, you may have to leave
the occupation completely!
Who Us? Really?
 Over 60% of Career Practitioners surveyed in NS are
mental health consumers themselves – depression
and anxiety
 Realities of our work – high paced, results oriented,
negative economies, pressure and stress, little clout
 Clients’ personal histories increasingly ‘traumatic’
 Labour market pressures could create a moral
dilemma, hiring practices incomplete or unethical
Ways to Reduce Compassion Fatigue
 Strong social support both at home and work
 Increased self awareness
 Good self care
 Better work/life balance
 Job satisfaction
 Rebalancing case load and workload reduction
 Limiting trauma inputs
 Accessing coaching, counseling, and good clinical
supervision as needed
 Attending regular professional development and training
We Can defend Ourselves
 Educate ourselves about CF , Burnout, and
secondary trauma, vicarious trauma
 Increase our self awareness of our warning signs, our
feelings of overwhelm and vicarious trauma before
we get to full blown ‘fatigue’
 Build strategies to de-brief upsetting events in a low
impact way. Decrease the ‘sliming
Vicarious Trauma in our work?
 Vicarious trauma – occurs when the stories we hear
from our clients transfer onto us in a way where we
too are traumatized by the images and details, even
though we did not experience them ourselves. We
then find it difficult to rid ourselves of the images
and experience they have shared with us.
Low Impact Debriefing – setting
boundaries
 What kind of conversation is this? Case conference, case
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consultation, work lunch, soccer game, party?
Is the listener aware that you are about to share graphic
details?
Able to control the flow of what you are about to share
with them?
If it is consultation or case conference has the listener
been informed that it is a debriefing or are you sitting in
their office chatting about your day
Have you given fair warning?
How much detail is too much? How much do we need to
tell to be productive in our work?
We have choices ..
 Reduce our ‘trauma load’ on a daily basis
 Become aware of media enhanced disaster ‘porn’,
violent crime dramas. Even the Weather Network
can have a negative cumulative impact on your
already overloaded day
 Where do the stories we hear at work go at the end of
the day?
Techniques
 “Helpers who bear witness to many stories of abuse
and violence notice that their own beliefs about the
world are altered and possibly damaged by being
repeatedly exposed to traumatic material” Transforming
the pain p.49
Healthy teams make us stronger
 Build strong support networks at work, supportive
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teams, strategic alliances:
No more Bitching, Moaning and Whining (BMW) Gossip adds dramatically to the negativity load
Commit to building your self esteem in healthy ways,
not on the backs of others.
(‘Nurses eat their young’)
Better managed case/work loads
 Pace and size of the case load make a huge difference
to work satisfaction
 Look for ways to manage this differently if possible
 Build ‘micro breaks’ into our schedules ( mindfulness
meditation) if nothing else
 Work with Management to alter the work day in
some way, part time , some other task one day a
week
Are you in the Danger Zone?
 Surveys and self tests canhelp you identify your
current state of work and life satisfaction
 Many tools to capture your current level of positivity,
happiness, your values, your curiosity, anxiety can be
found in The Compassion Fatigue Workbook or at
 Authentic happiness .org
 www.positivityratio.org
Learn about and commit to better self care.
 Take baby steps to make big changes begin
 Put your health first
 Savour the positivity in your life, gratitude, curiosity,
applications from Positive Psychology research
 Increase self compassion
 Reconnect with the satisfaction with your work
To Increase Personal Happiness
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1. Work on positivity
2. Practice gratitude
2. ‘Three good things’ exercise
3. Use your strengths in novel ways
4. 15 minutes a day of doing nothing
5. Learn something new
Resources, Credits
 Francoise Mathieu
 The Compassion Fatigue Workbook
 Webinar -Walking the walk , creating CF solutions
 Blog, YouTube videos, website
 Positivity -Barbara Frederickson
 Mindfulness meditation -Jon Kabat Zinn
 Patricia Smith