Thursday Workshops

119 Getting Your Groove Back: How to Overcome Compassion Fatigue

Trauma and abuse, depression, despair, anxiety, rage, grief--we get it all, and, almost by osmosis, we can begin to assume our clients’ woes. We lose sleep, have intrusive thoughts and memories, feel depleted and discouraged--as if all our efforts were futile, a tiny drop of compassion in an endless sea of misery. In this workshop, we’ll explore the experience of compassion fatigue, otherwise known as “burnout”--how we feel it in our bodies and minds, the ways it affects our practice, and what we can do to reverse the tide and replenish ourselves. Throughout the day, we’ll participate in active self-restoration and revival practices through art, movement, breathing exercises, meditation, aromatherapy, journaling, and poetry, sharing our experiences in a rejuvenating, community atmosphere.

Mary Jo Barrett, M.S.W., is the founder and director of the Center for Contextual Change and teaches at the University of Chicago. She’s the coauthor of Systemic Treatment of Incest and coeditor of Treating Incest: A Multimodal Systems Perspective.