**Compassion fatigue and burnout overlap — but they are clinically
distinct. Conflating them produces the wrong response to both.**
If you work in healthcare, education, social services, emergency
response, or any role that requires sustained empathic engagement with
people in difficulty — this issue is specifically for you and the
leaders who support you.
Compassion fatigue is the cost of caring. It is a predictable,
measurable response to the chronic empathic demand of working with
**Compassion satisfaction: the antidote that most organizations
accidentally suppress.**
The Professional Quality of Life model (Stamm, 2010) identifies three
dimensions of professional quality of life: Burnout, Secondary Traumatic
Stress (compassion fatigue), and — critically — Compassion
Satisfaction.
Compassion satisfaction is the positive dimension: the reward, the
meaning, the sense of making a difference that sustains caring
professionals through the most demanding work. It is the reason people
enter caring professions and, when present, the primary protective
The PST (Psychological Safety Training) gap in caring organizations.
CSA Z1003-13 — the Canadian standard for Psychological Health and
Safety in the Workplace — includes Psychological Competencies and
Requirements (Factor #5) as a core psychosocial factor. For
organizations in caring professions, this factor specifically
encompasses the training and support required to manage the
accidentally suppress.**
The Professional Quality of Life model (Stamm, 2010) identifies three
dimensions of professional quality of life: Burnout, Secondary Traumatic
Stress (compassion fatigue), and — critically — Compassion
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