How can being compassionate be detrimental to educators’ psychological wellbeing?

 

Many teachers are motivated by wanting to make a difference in children’s lives.  They give their time willingly at break-times, lunch times and out of school hours to support pupils who have been exposed to trauma and adversity or to colleagues who need support.  Doing so not only adds to their workload, leaving them less time to do their own work but can also leave them with insufficient time to meet their own needs, such as eating or going to the toilet.  Although these are physical needs, they can lead to a lack of energy, focus and psychological availability which are associated with reduced psychological wellbeing.

 

Working with children living with trauma and adversity may come with additional challenges that can cause employee stress.  Traumatised children may have associated behaviour regulation issues which are often deemed inappropriate for the classroom, for example, they may be clingy and in need of attention, totally shut down and difficult to engage, or violent and disruptive. Being on the receiving end of a direct attack, or witnessing children violating others, even when they know the child's circumstances, can be immensely distressing for educators.  For staff working directly with children, disruptive behaviour can also lead to feelings of incompetence and a lack of control, both of which are associated with reduced psychological wellbeing.  

 

Children living with trauma may find learning difficult (e.g., trauma impacts on the brain, pupils may be hypervigilant - on the look-out for danger, which affects concentration).  Most classes are also likely to have children and young people who face barriers to learning, including learning and communication needs; social, emotional and mental health needs; and physical disabilities.  For the teacher, meeting these additional needs can be stressful when there are insufficient resources (e.g., time, equipment, LSAs) to give every pupil in the class the attention they need to access learning.  This is particularly stressful when accountability practices related to pupils' academic attainment data do not take context into account, as this can leave teachers fearing for their jobs if scores aren't deemed high enough.

 

In addition to these more commonly recognised challenges, there is an emotional toll associated with being compassionate, known as compassion stress injury (CSI).  Although well understood in other sectors where practitioners work with traumatised and vulnerable populations, often with mitigatory measures in place, when I introduce the concept to educators (using CSI or any of the other related terms outlined below), a common response is “I hadn’t actually heard the term before, so I was like, oh there’s actually a name for that!”

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What is compassion stress injury?

 

CSI is an overarching term introduced by Russell and Brickell* to describe the severe emotional detriment from the second-hand experience of suffering, coupled with a desire to alleviate it, rather than a direct personal involvement in a traumatising event.

 

It acknowledges differences in the following concepts but considers that they are not sufficiently different to constitute separate phenomena.

 

• Compassion fatigue – ‘the physical and mental exhaustion and emotional withdrawal experienced by those who care for sick or traumatized people over an extended period of time’ (Merriam-Webster, 2021*)

• Vicarious trauma – ‘the process of change that happens because you care about other people who have been hurt and feel committed or responsible to help them. Over time this process can lead to changes in your psychological, physical and spiritual wellbeing’ (Pearlman and MacKay, 2008*)

• Secondary traumatic stress – ‘the natural consequent behaviours and emotions resulting from knowing about a traumatizing event experienced by a significant other—the stress resulting from helping or wanting to help a traumatized or suffering person’ (Figley, 1983*).

 

Returning to Strauss and colleagues’ elements of compassion can help us to understand how CSI occurs.

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How compassion stress occurs

 

Empathy is a responsive state and type of emotional contagion where exposure to another’s emotions (positive or negative) stimulates our mirror neurons, triggering a neurobiological response in us.  Where we perceive another as being in distress, we can react to how we think they may be feeling or how we might expect to feel if we were in that situation, effectively ‘catching’ negative emotions and associated detrimental effects. Where this is severe, or repeated, we may begin to see the world differently and to see danger and distress everywhere.

 

As humans, we’re wired to want to reduce our own distress, so, if we can’t get away from others’ suffering (or our perceptions of their distress), we can become overwhelmed by our own negative emotions. This can result in moving the focus away from others onto ourselves and can create a need to get away from them or to reduce our awareness of their distress.  This distancing works against compassionate acting and can lead to guilt or cynicism. 

 

However, we can learn to override and control/regulate our emotions. As well as enabling us to block out or suppress emotions, this also allows us to rationalise others’ actions/needs and be non-judgemental. This allows us to help, which can reduce our distress as we reduce that of others and helps to create feelings associated with compassion satisfaction.  But helping can use up energy and repeatedly putting others’ needs first, particularly if we are neglecting our own, can mean we ‘help until it hurts’.  Alternatively, despite having a desire to help, or despite our best efforts, we may find that we are unable to alleviate others' distress.  This can create feelings of incompetence, hopelessness, powerlessness and helplessness, and ultimately, we may become despondent and wonder what's the point in bothering?

 

All of these situations can result in CSI.

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*References:

Figley, C. (1983) Catastrophes: An overview of family reactions. In: C. Figley and H. McCubbin, eds (1983) Stress and the Family, Vol. II: Coping with Catastrophe. Brunner/Mazel: New York. pp.3–20.

Merriam-Webster (2021) Available at:   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compassion%20fatigue

Pearlman, L. and McKay, L. (2008).  Available at: https://www.vicarious-traumatisation.com 

Russell, M. and Brickell, M. (2015) The “double-edge sword” of human empathy: A unifying neurobehavioral theory of compassion stress injury. Social Sciences, 4(4), pp.1087–1117. 

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