psychiatry-2017-posters-accepted-abstracts

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conferenceseries

.com

April 24-25, 2017 Las Vegas, USA

World Congress on

Psychiatry and Psychological Syndromes

Volume 20, Issue 2 (Suppl)

J Psychiatry 2017

ISSN: 2378-5756 Psychiatry, an open access journal

Psychiatry 2017

April 24-25, 2017

J Psychiatry 2017, 20:2 (Suppl)

Compassion and compassion fatigue among mental health counselors while serving traumatized clients

TaJuana Wade

Argosy University, USA

howing empathy towards those whom we help is important. As we express empathy, it can lead to a profound level of compassion

for clients and patients who have experienced misfortune and suffering. Having compassion towards those whom we help is

good but when that same compassion that is used, turns and affects those who are helping and problems arises such as burnout

and compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue is subtle and distinct from burnout and doctors, nurses, psychologists, counselors and

teachers all experience stress, burnout. However, helping professionals could experience compassion fatigue and may not be aware

that they are experiencing it. According to authors, Slocum-Gori, Hemsworth, WY Chan, Carson, Kazanjian (2011), they described

compassion fatigue as "often been referred to as the emotional cost of caring" for others and has led professionals to abandon their

work with traumatized victims in their care. It is portrayed as a stress response that emerges suddenly within the helping professional

and without warning (p. 173). The research being conducted is looking at the difference between genders, the length of work in the

profession and level of self-care that may be contributing factors to mental health counselors experiencing compassion fatigue. The

writer hopes to demonstrate, that there is a correlation between the length of time mental health clinicians serves as a professional

significantly impact their experiencing compassion fatigue, female mental health clinicians that work with traumatized clients who

have experienced emotional trauma are prone to significant levels of compassion fatigue than male mental health clinician, and that

mental health clinicians who treat traumatized clients do not implement significant personal care to prevent compassion fatigue. The

results and findings of this research will be discussed in the small discussion group.