Dictionary

compassion fatigue en · NOUN

Etymology

From compassion + fatigue.

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) The exhaustion of the capacity to react with sympathy to another's misfortune owing to one's overexposure to their previous misfortunes.
   • • Personal variables: perfectionism and overinvolvement with patients, compassion fatigues, burnout […] . 2014, Karen Saucier Lundy, Sharyn Janes, Community Health Nursing, page 1113, In the nursing profession, the following stressors can affect our health
   • Recently, researchers have focused on another disturbing consequence of negative news—compassion fatigue. 2005, Karen S. Johnson-Cartee, News Narratives and News Framing: Constructing Political Reality, page 298:
   • When people talk about “compassion fatigue” it means having difficulty tending to other peoples' needs. The following article comments on what compassion fatigue is and how to overcome it so that you are not permanently burned out. 2013, Katherine Tapley-Milton, Devotions With Your Cat: For Those Who are Struggling, page 60:
   • But we must beware of the creeping "compassion fatigues,” and we must fight to counter the tendency. 1992, The Second Annual Refugee Day: October 30, 1991, Office of the U. S. Coordinator for Refugee Affairs, page 34:
   • Events come to be significant as instances above all of something that can be named: generation gaps, compassion fatigues, capitalist greed, welfare cheating, road rage, and so on. 1997, Kenneth R. Minogue, The Silencing of Society: The True Cost of the Lust for News, page 28:
   • 2002, J. Eric Gentry, Compassion Fatigue: A Crucible of Transformation, Steven N Gold, Jan Faust, Trauma Practice in the Wake of September 11, 2001, 2013, page 47, A common thread we have found with sufferers of compassion fatigue symptoms has been the progressive loss in their sense of connection and community.

Forms

Coordinates

redemption fatigue · donor fatigue · menu fatigue · Black fatigue