It is #WorldMentalHealthDay today and I would like to continue to share more on the issue of burn out due to what I believe was empathy fatigue that I experienced sometime back. Close to the end of 2018, I felt that I was burned out from all the work that I was doing as I was very much putting my emotional energy into the jobs that I loved that fits my personality, values and ideals so I held two jobs and was a client relation associate by day and tutor by night.
As I was flipping through my notes for counselling and psychotherapy an article dropped out. I had printed the article written by Ellen Hendriksen on learning to empathize without burning out. I could identify a lot with the article as it resonated with me as I was more interested in handling personal burn out than learning the art of managing more clients.
In the introduction, she shared about her intention to write the article on learning to empathize without burning out. According to Ellen, normally, she loved her work. It was, and continues to be, a privilege to help people get their lives unstuck. She uses the simile where it is like pushing a mired car out of the mud. You work together with great effort, and when the car lurches forward and rolls free, everyone cheers. But that time, it felt like the mud was sucking her down. (Hendriksen, 2018)
I would like to share the three different kinds of empathy according to emotional intelligence researchers. First, cognitive empathy, second emotional empathy and third compassionate empathy. Lastly, I would like to share an understanding of what empathy fatigue is among studies of health care workers and what the result of empathy is.
Three distinct way of perceiving what someone else is feeling
According to emotional intelligence researchers, empathy isn’t as straightforward as it seems; instead, there are three distinct ways of perceiving what someone else is feeling. Cognitive empathy, for example, is understanding on an intellectual level how another person thinks and feels, without getting tangled in shared emotion. It is a conscious and deliberate taking of another’s perspective — you understand what will motivate or move them. Cognitive empathy is the cornerstone of trusting relationships; when someone understands you, you begin to trust them. (Hendriksen, 2018)
In contrast, emotional empathy is the sharing of emotion, feeling what others feel, the proverbial “putting yourself in their shoes.” As a skill, it’s practically a superpower. It keeps us in sync with one another, allowing us to feel the joy of a friend’s wedding, or the giddiness of a child on Christmas morning. Beyond that, standing in the shoes of a demographic “other” can sharpen the person into focus as a living, breathing individual rather than blurring them into a stereotyped group. (Hendriksen, 2018)
Enter the third kind of empathy: compassionate empathy. This type allows us to feel alongside another, understand what they might be going through, and, crucially, move us to help. But how do we switch on the compassionate empathy? If we don’t want merely to cry together, nor sit with coolly detached understanding, how can we activate the altruism of compassionate empathy? (Hendriksen, 2018)
Empathy fatigue
The term empathy fatigue implies there is something inherently exhausting about compassionate empathy and the caring actions it prompts. But studies of health-care workers find a lower incidence of empathy fatigue in older, more experienced providers. The highest levels of empathy fatigue occur in the young guns with the least experience. This tells us that empathy doesn’t slowly drain from a person like water draining from a tub. It doesn’t deplete over the course of a friendship, a career, or a lifetime. Instead, when it sparks compassion and altruism, empathy can be energizing.
So rather than letting your heart break, let your heart respond, whether that’s administering evidence-based treatments, making a donation, volunteering your time, bringing over takeout, or simply listening in sympathetic silence. What someone suffering needs is not a mirror, but a sounding board, a plan, or simply a vehement affirmation that they’re not crazy. These days, the stories I hear are still heartbreaking, but rather than leaving my heart in pieces on the floor, or detached with cold intellectualization, my heart fills — because I can respond.
You can access the link to the article by Ellen here:
https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/a-therapist-on-learning-to-empathize-without-burning-out.html
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