Professional Quality of Life
Compassion Satisfaction, Compassion Fatigue
and Secondary Traumatic Stress
Compassion Satisfaction, Compassion Fatigue
and Secondary Traumatic Stress
Professional Quality of Life and the Core Key Elements
Professional quality of life is the quality one feels in relation to their work as a helper. Both the positive and negative aspects of doing one’s job influence ones professional quality of life. People who work in helping professions may respond to individual, community, national, and even international crises. Helpers can be found in the health care professionals, social service workers, teachers, attorneys, police officers, firefighters, clergy, airline and other transportation staff, disaster site clean-up crews, and others who offer assistance at the time of the event or later.
Professional quality of life incorporates two aspects, the positive (Compassion Satisfaction) and the negative (Compassion Fatigue). Compassion fatigue breaks into two parts. The first part concerns things such as such as exhaustion, frustration, anger and depression typical of burnout. Secondary Traumatic Stress is a negative feeling driven by fear and work-related trauma. It is important to remember that some trauma at work can be direct (primary) trauma. In other cases, work-related trauma be a combination of both primary and secondary trauma.
The overall concept of professional quality of life is complex because it is associated with characteristics of the work environment (organizational and task-wise), the individual's personal characteristics and the individual's exposure to primary and secondary trauma in the work setting. This complexity applies to paid workers (e.g. medical personnel) and volunteers (e.g. Red Cross disaster responders).
The diagram below helps illustrate the elements of Professional Quality of Life. In the center of the diagram are compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue. Compassion Satisfaction is the positive aspects of helping others and Compassion fatigue are the negative one. As can be seen, one work environment, client (or the person helped) environment and the person’s environment all have a roll to play. For example, a poor work environment may contribute to Compassion Fatigue. At the same time, a person could feel compassion satisfaction that they could help others despite that poor work environment. Compassion Fatigue contains two very different aspects. Both have the characteristic of being negative. However, work-related trauma has a distinctive aspect of fear associated with it. While it is more rare than overall feelings of what we can call burnout, it is very powerful in its effect on a person. When both burnout and trauma are present in a person’s life their life can be very difficult indeed. The diagram below shows a theoretical path analysis of positive and negative outcomes of helping those who have experienced traumatic stress.
Professional quality of life incorporates two aspects, the positive (Compassion Satisfaction) and the negative (Compassion Fatigue). Compassion fatigue breaks into two parts. The first part concerns things such as such as exhaustion, frustration, anger and depression typical of burnout. Secondary Traumatic Stress is a negative feeling driven by fear and work-related trauma. It is important to remember that some trauma at work can be direct (primary) trauma. In other cases, work-related trauma be a combination of both primary and secondary trauma.
The overall concept of professional quality of life is complex because it is associated with characteristics of the work environment (organizational and task-wise), the individual's personal characteristics and the individual's exposure to primary and secondary trauma in the work setting. This complexity applies to paid workers (e.g. medical personnel) and volunteers (e.g. Red Cross disaster responders).
The diagram below helps illustrate the elements of Professional Quality of Life. In the center of the diagram are compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue. Compassion Satisfaction is the positive aspects of helping others and Compassion fatigue are the negative one. As can be seen, one work environment, client (or the person helped) environment and the person’s environment all have a roll to play. For example, a poor work environment may contribute to Compassion Fatigue. At the same time, a person could feel compassion satisfaction that they could help others despite that poor work environment. Compassion Fatigue contains two very different aspects. Both have the characteristic of being negative. However, work-related trauma has a distinctive aspect of fear associated with it. While it is more rare than overall feelings of what we can call burnout, it is very powerful in its effect on a person. When both burnout and trauma are present in a person’s life their life can be very difficult indeed. The diagram below shows a theoretical path analysis of positive and negative outcomes of helping those who have experienced traumatic stress.
The core key elements of professional quality of
life are compassion satisfaction, burnout and compassion fatigue, also known as
secondary trauma. Compassion satisfaction is the positive feelings one receives
from doing their work in the service of others. Burnout and compassion fatigue
are both negative and they are closely related. The core difference between the
two is fear. Compassion Fatigue or Secondary Trauma is a negative feeling
driven by fear.
Dr. Beth Hudnall Stamm, Ph.D., http://www.proqol.org/ and Idaho State University
Craig Higson-Smith, M.A., South African Institute of Traumatic Stress
Amy C. Hudnall, M.A., Appalachian State University
Dr. Henry E. Stamm, Ph.D., Pocatello, ID, U.S.A.
Khabir, BA, webmaster