Compassion Fatigue

Abstract

Abstract Compassion fatigue is characterized by physical and psychological exhaustion resulting from excessive professional demands that drain available personal resources. While all helping professionals are vulnerable to compassion fatigue, the authors believe that social workers working with the elderly have unique stresses that make them a high-risk group for compassion fatigue. Increased frustration over limited financial, social and medical services for the elderly, exposure to the developmental challenges inherent during the older years and the worker's countertransferential issues are discussed as contributors to compassion fatigue. Other factors that reinforce this type of burnout for professionals working with this population and recommendations for avoiding or decreasing compassion fatigue are presented. Key Words: Burnoutsocial work burnoutelderly and burnoutcompassion fatiguesecondary traumatic stress disorder