Year of Award

2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Name

Counselor Education and Supervision

Department or School/College

Phyllis J. Washington College of Education

Committee Chair

Veronica Johnson

Commitee Members

Kirsten Murray, Sara Polanchek, Jayna Mumbauer, Emily Sallee, J. Eric Gentry

Keywords

Burnout, Compassion Fatigue, Compassion Satisfaction, Counselor Education, Resiliency Training, Secondary Traumatic Stress

Publisher

University of Montana

Abstract

Compassion fatigue (CF) is a pervasive problem in all caring professions, including counseling. The combination of secondary traumatic stress (STS) and burnout (BO) can lead to an overabundance of negative symptoms decreasing both professional and personal quality of life, perhaps resulting in career attrition. However, this does not have to be the case. CF experiences have been shown to be malleable to interventions like those offered through the Accelerated Recovery Program (ARP) and subsequent resiliency workshops. While yielding non-statistically significant results, this quasi-experimental control time series design found support for the reduction of self-reported CF in the short term and increased compassion satisfaction (CS) for mental health professionals and counselors-in-training who participated in the intervention. The significance of this study is the yielding of valuable longitudinal information about CF to help thwart symptoms before they become problematic. Furthermore, counselor educators can employ the information gained in this study as they seek to prepare their students to be competent and resilient counselors.

Share

COinS
 

© Copyright 2020 Julie Kay Ballew