Addressing Compassion Fatigue Using Career Engagement and the Hope-Centered Model for Career Development

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacted a toll on healthcare workers, who have been required to work during times of great challenge and scarcity, as well as risk to themselves, whilst continuing to provide care for others. This desire to alleviate the suffering of others puts healthcare workers at increased risk of compassion fatigue, a traumatic stress response that can develop from supporting others through emotional suffering and trying to alleviate that pain. Increased risk to this large population poses a challenge to career practitioners, who will need effective ways of supporting these workers in healing. This paper discusses conceptualizing compassion fatigue through a career engagement lens, and proposes the uses of the Hope-Centered Model of Career Development as a means of supporting reengagement. Through the reinstallation of hope, feeling of agency and achievement again become possible.