Is it Burnout or Compassion Fatigue?
What is burnout?
Burnout is related to workplace stress and, like compassion fatigue, more common in public sector service staff than elsewhere. Burnout involves feeling overwhelmed, emotionally drained and physically tired. You may find yourself dreading going to work, becoming physically ill more frequently than usual and being negative and cynical about your role, clients and organisation. You may also find that your compassion for others, including patients, reduces which may make you wonder if you are suffering from compassion fatigue.
The difference between burnout and compassion fatigue
The signs of burnout and compassion fatigue can be similar, however, the cause and speed of onset are different.
Burnout tends to grow gradually as you experience more and more workplace stressors or the support you have is diminished. Alternatively, compassion fatigue can have a faster onset or even be triggered by a single event.
Compassion fatigue is specifically associated with secondary trauma. While anyone in any job can experience burnout, compassion fatigue is specific to ‘helping’ professionals who witness or hear about patients’ trauma. Such professionals may be involved in physically helping patients recover from physical trauma such as nurses and medics in an accident and emergency department, while mental health professionals may experience compassion fatigue due to offering therapy and day-to-day support to patients who have experienced trauma such as abuse.
The key difference in the symptoms for compassion fatigue is a change in cognition. If you are experiencing burnout and you move jobs to a better structured, organised role with a more supportive team and supervisor then your burnout will disappear. However, compassion fatigue can result in a cognitive shift, meaning the sufferer starts to see the world differently and finds it hard to continue caring, giving and helping others in the way they previously have, even if their role changes.
Getting help for burnout
Similar strategies can be utilised in the prevention of burnout and the prevention of compassion fatigue. Our previous blog Top Five tips to prevent burnout may help you to consider the changes you can make and the support you may need.
Whether you are experiencing burnout or compassion fatigue, the first step is to speak to someone. You may wish to draw on services like Burnout UK and your own social circle. It is also vitally important that you speak to someone from your organisation so that appropriate assessment and support can be arranged.
Burnout UK was founded by Dr Julie Hannan and provides online courses for people to overcome and prevent burnout. Courses are written by Psychologists and approved by the British Psychological Society. Courses help you identify stressors that you face in your work and home life that might be contributing to your burnout and reshape areas of your life which are depleting you by developing new strategies to support your recovery and strengthen your resilience and wellbeing for the future.
