Do you get "compassion fatigue"? If so, do you actively try to counter it?

There is certainly that risk whenever you deal with intense matters. The trick is to figure out a way to make the work pay off in non-financial ways for the donor or volunteer. My favorite example is the Leukemia and Lyphoma Society (LLS) Team in Training program (see teamintraining.org/ ).

This program recruits people who, for whatever personal reason, decide to volunteer to raise funds for the LLS mission by participating in endurance sports events such as marathons, 100-mile bike rides, triathlons, etc. Participants get to not only make a difference for the charity (LLS in this case) and its beneficiaries (blood cancer patients, their families, blood cancer researchers, etc. ), they also get to improve their own fitness and health, build up self esteem, and generate new friendships with other participants through joint participation, mentoring, coaching, etc.To read more about my experience with Team in Training, see associatedcontent.com/article/2220001/ge... . By combining these personal and social benefits, TNT allows you to avoid compassion burnout.

Yes, yes, I really understand. I'm a counselor and sometimes I get tired of listening and being compassionate. It is a profession that can easily burn you out.

I try to counter it by taking time to myself and distance myself from my students' problem. I enjoy myself and focus on having fun and forget about all my work. As a teacher I'm quite lucky to have school holiday to take time off.

Now, I'm burnt out, not because of the profession or of being compassionate, but because of the pressure from the organization. It is very important for any organization that runs service for human beings, such as schools, hospitals, etc to understand their employees' burden. If not, either their employees' become callous and can't give the best service for their clients, or the turn off will be very high.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.