Compassion fatigue affects coaches too

Compassion fatigue affects coaches too

At a time of international crisis, when compassion is most needed, I realise that I am suffering from compassion fatigue. And I feel guilty about it. I’m not alone – it’s become a recurring topic in coach supervision. Coaches are not immune to the stresses their clients experience. When these are combined with stresses in their own lives, emotional overwhelm is more common than might be imagined.

As always, recognising what is happening is a starting point for addressing the problem. Compassion fatigue is a syndrome in which increasing levels of emotional exhaustion, often leading to physical exhaustion, affects our willingness and ability to care for and support others. The stress involved may have serious long-term health impacts – it accelerates aging, and older adults who care for a spouse have a 63% higher risk of death than non-carers of the same age.

It has many symptoms and many causes. Among the most common symptoms are: anxiety, hypersensitivity to emotional situations (for example, not being to be able to watch the news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine), sadness, difficulty sleeping, feeling overwhelmed, and powerless in the face of other people’s suffering, low stress tolerance, reduced pleasure in activities we enjoy, withdrawal… the similarities with burnout are high. Indeed, compassion fatigue might be described as caring burnout.

Similarly, there are lots of causes. One of the most common for coaches appears to be when the need for compassion for a loved one --- for example, someone with a long-term illness -- eats up so much of our caring capacity that we have little left for clients. Add a humanitarian crisis or two and the sense of being unable to cope becomes overwhelming.

There is load of advice available for overcoming or at least ameliorating compassion fatigue. Here, I’ve tried to extract and condense some of the most useful.

1.     Accept that it is happening – talk about it to yourself and colleagues. Allow them to be part of your support group.

2.     Remind yourself of the positive side of compassion – satisfaction, self-worth, alignment with values etc

3.     Pay extra attention to your own self-care. Create healthy routines that keep you grounded and physically fit – exercise, adequate sleep and good nutrition. Make time for social activities outside of work.

4.     Take time each morning to meditate and plan; during the day to recoup energy. Avoid pre-sleep rumination – do something pleasurable and distractive instead.

5.      Reconnect with nature

6.     Develop your compassion for yourself. Regularly review what you can forgive yourself for and what is “good enough”. 

7.     Reflect upon what it means to care enough, too much and too little. Recalibrate regularly.

8.     Be alert to signs of compassion fatigue in colleagues – support each other.

9.     Find ways to compartmentalise the situations, in which emotional stress occurs. For example, have a “safe” place or activity that allows you to recuperate and restore equilibrium.

10.  Recognise that compassion fatigue is normal and a valuable reminder to step back and see the wider picture. The more aware we are of our own triggers, the easier it is to find the way back to our personal “places of calm”.

Far from being unusual, compassion fatigue is a frequent occurrence for coaches. When we manage it, we don’t just do so for our own benefit and well-being; we do it on behalf of our clients, too. And, of course, that allows us to empathise more fully with our clients, when they show symptoms of compassion fatigue. 

Copyright: David Clutterbuck 2022