Who is Responsible for Compassion Satisfaction? Shifting Ethical Responsibility for Compassion Fatigue from the Individual to the Ecological

ABSTRACT

Compassion fatigue, a secondary traumatic stress [STS] disorder with similar symptoms as post-traumatic stress disorder, is a recognised workplace hazard, particularly for those working in trauma exposed occupations. Here, and by drawing on Australian codes of ethical practice for nurses, social workers and youth workers, we explore how these codes might inform the practice of these Australian health and human services practitioners with respect to compassion fatigue. Drawing on Nikolas Rose’s ideas about responsibilisation and the death of the social, we argue that these codes tacitly reflect a broader research and organisational impetus to responsibilise individuals to prevent compassion fatigue and maintain compassion satisfaction, and we situate this in a broader neoliberal socio-political context also framed by ‘responsibilisation’ in the context of a ‘decaying social’ and by a health and human service sector shaped by new public management. Finally, we begin to explore a preliminary conceptual case for an ecological lens through which to understand ethical responsibility for self-care, maintaining practitioner health and mitigating compassion fatigue. We argue that this lens brings into focus the need for codes to more clearly articulate broader and collective responsibilities for these elements.

KEYWORDS:

• Compassion fatigue
• codes of ethical practice
• social work
• youth work
• nursing
• human services
• health
• neoliberalism
• responsibilisation
• ecological models

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Associate Professor Robyn Martin for her generous commenting on an earlier draft of this article as well as the anonymous reviewers who assisted us to clarify our ideas.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathy Edwards

Kathy Edwards is a Senior Lecturer in Youth Work at RMIT University. She teaches in public policy, ethics and youth studies. Her research critically considers social policy under the dominance of neoliberalism.

Anastasia Goussios

Anastasia Goussios is the Founder and Director of Compassion Fatigue Australia, and a registered psychologist. Anastasia’s professional experience spans over three decades. and includes private practice, corporate, government, rural and remote communities. She provides training and education regarding psychological hazards in the workplaces to high stress and trauma exposed organisations