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Running on Empty: Preventing Burnout and Compassion Fatigue

Explore the history, concepts, and definitions of compassion satisfaction, stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue. Discover interventions to restore balance, transform advising roles, and connect themes to strategy sessions. Learn about signs of burnout, compassion fatigue, and how to prevent it through personal and organizational interventions.

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Running on Empty: Preventing Burnout and Compassion Fatigue

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  1. Running on Empty: Preventing Burnout and Compassion Fatigue Brian Koslowski, M.Ed. | Brandeis University 2016 MASFAA GPCC Symposium | February 5, 2016

  2. Session Overview • Explore the history, concepts, and definitions of compassion satisfaction, stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue • Discover person- and organization-centered interventions to restore balance • Transform your advising role into something essential • Connect themes to this afternoon’s strategy session and your action plans

  3. Compassion Satisfaction • The positive aspects of helping • Pleasure and satisfaction derived from working in helping, care-giving systems • May be related to: • Providing care • To the system • Work with colleagues • Beliefs about self • Altruism

  4. Stress • Hans Selye (1936): “the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change” • British Medical Journal (1951): “Stress in addition to being itself, was also the cause of itself, and the result of itself.”

  5. Mental, physical, emotional limits determined by physical state, past experiences, cultural, social, personal values • Reflective writing: • What are your limits at work? • How do you know? • Do you know the limits of your colleagues? • Have you entered the red zone? What happened?

  6. History of ‘burnout’ • “The extinction of motivation or incentive, especially where one’s devotion to a cause or relationship fails to produce the desired results.” – Freudenberger • “A syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who work with people in some capacity.” – Maslach

  7. Maslach Burnout Inventory Exhaustion • I feel emotionally drained at work. • Working with people all day is really a strain for me. Depersonalization • I’ve become more callous toward people since I took this job. • I worry that this job is hardening me emotionally. Cynicism • In my work, I don’t deal with emotional problems very calmly. • I’m not sure I’m positively influencing other people’s lives through my work.

  8. Signs/Symptoms of Burnout Work-related Feeling like you have little or no control over your work Unclear job expectations Working in a chaotic or high-pressure environment Lifestyle Working too much, without enough time for relaxation/socializing Being expected to be too many things to too many people Lack of close, supportive relationships

  9. Personality Perfectionist tendencies, nothing is ever good enough Need to be in control, reluctance to delegate Mismatch in values Physical Feeling tired and drained most of the time Lowered immunity, feeling sick a lot Change in appetite or sleep habits

  10. Emotional Sense of failure and self-doubt Feeling helpless, trapped, defeated Loss of motivation, sense of accomplishment Behavioral Withdrawing from responsibilities Isolating yourself from others Using food, alcohol, drugs to cope

  11. Compassion Fatigue • Compassion fatigue is a state experienced by those helping people in distress; an extreme state of tension and preoccupation with the suffering of those being helped to the degree that it is traumatizing for the helper. • The helper, in contrast to the person(s) being helped, is traumatized or suffers through the helper's own efforts to empathize and be compassionate. Often, this leads to poor self care and extreme self sacrifice in the process of helping. Together, this leads to compassion fatigue and symptoms similar to posttraumatic stress disorder. (Charles Figley)

  12. How susceptible are advisors to burnout? • Wearing many hats • Working with large caseloads • When is enough, enough? • Students/parents/colleagues in crisis • Focus on problems, lack of positive feedback

  13. Who’s at risk? • New professionals/out of graduate school • Childless people, single people • Those who engage more in work/home interference

  14. “[Esposito and Fine] suggest that the burnout ideology fosters the notion that workers are burned out from clients, too much work, or the stresses of human service… camouflaging systems problems. Cast as a personnel issue, rather than a collective and structural issue, this ideology preserves the illusion that all is well in the agency and the world around it.” (Hartman) “Imagine investigating the personality of cucumbers to discover why they had turned into sour pickles… without analyzing the vinegar barrels in which they have been submerged!” (Maslach)

  15. Person-centered Interventions • Start the day with a relaxing ritual (journal, read, exercise) • Adopt healthy eating, sleeping habits • Set boundaries • Nourish your creative side • Slow down, give yourself time to rest, reflect, heal • Re-evaluate goals and priorities • Develop a healthy support system, spend time with people who care and contribute positively to your self-esteem

  16. Organization-centered Interventions • Employee autonomy • Management style • Training • Social culture/environment • Acknowledgement

  17. “But I’m so… busy!” • It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.”“Crazy busy.”It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.” (NYT, June 2012)

  18. Essentialism • Essentialism is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter. • Is this the very most important thing I should be doing with my time and resources right now? • What is the next best thing I should be doing? • If it isn’t a clear YES, then it’s a clear NO. • Don’t major in minor activities!

  19. Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project - Ten Laws Governing a Healthy Workplace • The Caregiver’s Bill of Rights Which of these are important to you?How would you start this conversation with your colleagues, with your supervisor?

  20. Which things are crowding you the most? Make a list of tasks/responsibilities. • Choose the most troublesome item, and reflect: • Do you feel compelled (by outside pressures) or are you making a deliberate choice that something is important?

  21. Is this item truly important for you to make the highest possible contribution to your work? Why/why not? • Can you seriously give yourself to this task as well as other things you believe are important? If you had to confidently give something up, what would have to happen? If you have come to this conclusion in the past, what helped you see this? (questions adapted from Matt Troupe)

  22. Thank you! “If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” (Unknown) Brian Koslowski bkoslow@brandeis.edu Brandeis University

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