The Ethics of Self-Care

Deirdre Finney Boylan, LCSWField Instructor Appreciation

April 29, 2015University of Maine School of Social Work

NASW Code of Ethics 4.05: Impairment

(a) Social workers should not allow their own personal problems, psychosocial distress, legal problems, substance abuse, or mental health difficulties to interfere with their professional judgment and performance, or to jeopardize the best interests of people for whom they have a professional responsibility

NASW Code of Ethics 4.05: Impairment

(b) Social workers whose personal problems, psychosocial distress, legal problems, substance abuse, or mental health difficulties interfere with their professional judgment and performance should immediately seek consultation and take appropriate remedial action by seeking professional help, making adjustments in workload, terminating practice, or taking any other steps necessary to protect clients and others

Vocabulary

• Compassion Satisfaction– Positive aspects of working as a helper

• Compassion Fatigue– Negative aspects of working as a helper

• Burnout– Inefficacy and feeling overwhelmed

• Work-related traumatic stress– Primary traumatic stress direct target of event– Secondary traumatic exposure to event due to a

relationship with the primary person

Compassion Satisfaction

• The positive aspects of helping– Pleasure and satisfaction derived from

working in helping, care giving systems

• May be related to – Providing care– To the system– Work with colleagues– Beliefs about self– Altruism

Compassion Fatigue

• The negative aspects of helping

• The negative aspects of working in helping systems may be related to– Providing care– To the system– Work with colleagues– Beliefs about self

• Burnout

• Work-related trauma

Compassion fatigue

• Profound emotional and physical exhaustion experienced by helping professionals and care givers can develop over the course of their career.

• An occupational hazard, according to Charles Figley, “a disorder that affects those who do their work well.”

• The relational nature of our work exposes us to others’ trauma and distress, as well as the demands of doing more with less in our agencies and organizations.

Vicarious Traumatization

• A cumulative process that occurs when human service providers become impacted by their exposure to the traumatic stories and experiences shared by their clients.

• Defined by Laurie Anne Pearlman and Karen Saakvitne to describe the powerful changes in perception of themselves and their expectations of the world that workers can experience when they work with clients who have experienced trauma.

Where did I go?

• Identity as a professional

• View of the world

• Sense of myself as a friend, lover, family member

• Ability to care for others

• Ability to care for myself

ProQol: Professional Quality of Life Self-

Test• The Compassion Fatigue Workbook

• ProQol can be downloaded at http://www.proquol.org/ProQol_Test.html.

• Being used to compile data and assess the effectiveness of the test. (www.proquol.org)

• 30 questions that are rated on a likert scale to assess levels of Compassion satisfaction, Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress.

Stages of Recovery for the Healer

•  I. Acknowledgement of how caring for others has impacted our lives and changed us-both positively and negatively. Recognizing our expenditures & replenishers

•  II. Designing a program that will nurture and replenish our skills, knowledge and energy for personal and professional competence and growth

•  III. Commitment to ongoing practice of replenishment to nurture our own health and well-being, and allow us to engage with out clients in their journeys of healing

~Mary Jo Barrett, MSW Center for Contextual Change

References• Barret, M. J. (2014). The Ethically Attuned Therapist. Presentation at

Psychotherapy Networker Annual Conference, Washington, DC.

• Figley, C. R (Ed.). (1995). Compassion Fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder in those who treat the traumatized. New York: Brunner/Mazel.

• Figley, C. R. (Ed.). (2002). Treating Compassion Fatigue. New York: Brunner/Routledge.

• Mathieu, Francoise (2012). The Compassion Fatigue Workbook. New York: Routledge.

• Pearlman, L. A. & Saakvitne, K. W. (1995). Trauma and the therapist: Countertransference and vicarious traumatization in psychotherapy with incest survivors. New York: W.W. Norton.

• Stamm, B.H. (2010). The ProQOL (Professional Quality of Life Scale: Compassion Satisfaction and Compassion Fatigue). Pocatello, ID: ProQOL.org. Retrieved April 2015 from www.proqol.org