Self-Care Promotes Effective Care Giving
Dr. Melissa Arnott, LPC NCC
Cape Counseling's staff provides an impressive and diverse range of quality services to fragile members of our community. Clients often present with acute mental illness, addiction, loss, and trauma requiring not only highly developed professional skills to address, but almost hero strength and patience with an abundance of compassion. Sharing empathy with clients at this extreme level can result in chronic stress and symptomology called Compassion Fatigue.
Leading traumatologist Eric Gentry suggests that whose of us who are attracted to the social services profession often enter the caretaking field already compassion fatigued. A strong identification with helpless, suffering, or traumatized people or animals is possibly the motive. Many of us have come from a tradition of what Gentry labels other-directed care giving. Simply put, we were taught at an early age to care for the needs of others before caring for our own needs.
Empathy is a necessary attribute in offering effective care to our clients, but unmanaged empathy can overwhelm us with another's distress and leave us fatigued, angry, and even unable to care anymore. We tend to overlook our own needs. No one likes to talk about these feelings; they seem selfish, shameful, or defeated. If compassion fatigue is ignored and appropriate, ongoing, self-care practices are absent from our lives, we will soon be the one requiring care.
If we sense that we are suffering from compassion fatigue, chances are excellent that we are. Our path to wellness begins with one small step: Awareness. Each counselor must develop an individualized approach and commitment to self-care. The areas of self-care include, mind, body, emotion, and spirit.
A heightened awareness can lead us to helpful insights. With the appropriate information and support, we can embark on a journey of discovery, even healing past traumas and pain that my currently serve as obstacles to a healthy, happier lifestyle. It is also important for us to practice ongoing self-compassion and self-forgiveness. While aiming for our best, we must realize our limitations personally and professionally, then let go of what we cannot have an impact on. We can rejuvenate our sense of life and hope with simple practices including enjoyable social activities, regular exercise, healthy eating habits, journaling, and restful sleep which all contribute to reduced compassion fatigue. Our increased experience of compassion satisfaction will help us derive the pleasure we want from being able to do our work well.
Be kind to yourself with these Self-Care Awareness Tips
Self-Care Awareness Tips
- Be mindful of where you are on your physical, emotional, and spiritual path.
- Enhance your awareness with education.
- Identify and use a support system.
- Focus on what you do well.
- Clarify your personal boundaries. What works for you? Know what doesn't.
- Express your needs assertively.
- Exchange information and feelings with people who can validate you.
- Identify leisure and creative activities where you can experience harmony and self-integration.
- Take positive action to change your environment when needed.
- Meditation and relaxation.
Complete the self-scoring Professional Quality of Life Scale and Scale Scores to help you assess your degree of compassion fatigue and satisfaction. Its available online at www.capecounseling.org |
