Lying Down in the Ever-Falling Snow: Canadian Health Professionals' Experience of Compassion Fatigue

Compassion fatigue from the perspective of insiders in caregiving roles

First used to describe the weariness the public felt toward media portrayals of societal crises, the term compassion fatigue has been taken up by health professionals to name—along with burnout, vicarious traumatization, compassion stress, and secondary traumatic stress—the condition of caregivers who become “too tired to care.” Compassion, long seen as the foundation of ethical caring, is increasingly understood as a t...