Abstract
Traditional research on the phenomenon of compassion fatigue (CF) in mental health work tends to include recommendations for workers to build skills in psychological detachment and self-care. This puts the burden of coping with vicarious trauma on the individual caregiver, not on the systems they operate within. Alternatively, a transformative systemic perspective suggests that Western cultural assumptions about care-giving and individual resilience need to be reassessed. By broadening the exploration of CF and comparing it with human reactions to overwhelming crises across fields and disciplines, new questions can be asked, and new solutions can be proposed. This essay details how mental health workers—and anyone facing overwhelming, existential crises—can learn to enter into relationships of mutual care and an expansion of empathy through the experience of communal grief. An actively humble look at human interconnectedness—the complex enmeshment with other people and systems—redirects focus away from individual responsibility and avoidance of discomfort toward participation in relationships of healing.
Recommended Citation
Standen, S. S. (2025). At Stake in Each Other’s Company: A Systems View of Compassion Fatigue in Mental Health Work. Journal of Conscious Evolution, 22(1). https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cejournal/vol22/iss1/1
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Counselor Education Commons, Marriage and Family Therapy and Counseling Commons, Other Mental and Social Health Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Social Psychology and Interaction Commons, Theory and Philosophy Commons
