Question

To what extent do you think the emotional exhaustion that frequently occurs among counselors and therapists is an unavoidable consequence of dealing with the pain and suffering of clients and to what extent is it a result of external pressures such as managed care and administrative directives? If you think it is unavoidable, what steps should professionals take to cope with the toll it takes on them?

Answer 1

• Emotional exhaustion is a part of counselors job due to repeated exposure to different clients suffering from different problems everyday.Compassion fatigue, also known as second-hand shock and secondary stress reaction, describes a type of stress that results from helping or wanting to help those who are traumatized or under significant emotional duress.
• Compassion fatigue can be a precursor or a symptom of other stressors. Because therapists are trained to utilize compassion and empathy in order for therapy to be effective, they are particularly vulnerable to emotional stress and compassion fatigue. For therapists, compassion fatigue can have ethical and legal implications if left untreated, especially if they are providing therapeutic services that are not benefiting those under their care in therapy.
• Compassion fatigue can take a physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional toll on people who experience it. Common symptoms of compassion fatigue include:
• Chronic physical and emotional exhaustion
• Depersonalization
• Feelings of inequity toward the therapeutic or caregiver relationship
• Irritability
• Feelings of self-contempt
• Difficulty sleeping
• Weight loss
• Headaches
• Poor job satisfaction
• Compassion fatigue can affect a wide range of professions and caregivers. It tends to be common among professionals who regularly work in a helping or healing capacity.Therapists, for example, may experience compassion fatigue when the stories and experiences of the people they meet in therapy start to affect their lives outside of work. A large part of emotional exhaustion suffered by counselors or therapists is due to the patients they deal everyday and sometimes even work pressures,or personal pressures can hinder counselor's performance.
• Practicing self-awareness and self-monitoring to recognize changes in behavior, work, and life outside of work is the first step to preventing compassion fatigue.
• These practices can also help prevent compassion fatigue:
• Reducing stressful workloads
• Monitoring sleep patterns
• Taking regular vacations
• Meditation
• Journaling
• Seeking personal therapy to process work problems
• Regular exercise
• It can be easy for therapists and caregivers to enter a cycle of blaming themselves for not having what it takes to do their jobs when the symptoms of compassion fatigue arise.To overcome the emotional exhaustion associated with it counselors can-talk about their feelings with a trusted person and/or a mental health professional;Making a commitment to regularly exercise;Developing a healthy diet;Getting restful sleep;Developing hobbies different from work
• Therapists' tendency to focus exclusively on other people's well being and the fact that we spend long hours in this mode account for the high rates of stress, substance abuse, depression and even suicide among members of mental health professionals. In addition to the personal ill effects of burnout, providing poor treatment for clients as a result of burnout is unethical.Burnout is the result of job stress stemming from the numerous emotional hazards of the profession.It manifests primarily as emotional exhaustion, "emotional fatigue" or "emotional overload.
• Working constantly with people who are in pain, feel suicidal, are grieving over the loss of loved ones, or those severely traumatized, takes a heavy toll on practitioners. The psychotherapist can be "infected" with a patient's sadness; a condition Jung called "psychic poisoning."
• Focusing on other people's problems, which may be more severe than their own, can lead therapists to lose track of their own situation.