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Compassion Fatigue

In order to be the best benefit for clients, practitioners must maintain a state of psychological well-being. Unaddressed compassion fatigue may decrease a practitioners ability to effectively help their clients. Some counselors who use self-compassion as part of their self-care regime have had higher instances of psychological functioning. The counselors use of self-compassion may lessen experiences of vicarious trauma that the counselor might experience through hearing clients stories Self-compassion as a self-care method is beneficial for both clients and counselors.

Self-awareness as a method of self-care might help to alleviate the impact of vicarious trauma (compassion fatigue). Students who took a 15 week course that emphasized stress reduction techniques and the use of mindfulness in clinical practice had significant improvements in  therapeutic relationships and counseling skills. The practice of mindfulness, according to Buddhist tradition is to release a person from “suffering” and to also come to a state of consciousness. Mindfulness utilizes the path to consciousness through the deliberate practice of engaging “the body, feelings, states of mind, and experiential phenomena (dharma).” The following therapeutic interventions may be used as mindfulness self-care practices :


 * Somatic therapy (body)
 * Psychotherapy (states of mind)
 * Emotion focused therapy (feelings)
 * Gestalt therapy (experiential phenomena)