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Understanding Compassion and the positive impact of being Compassionate

What is compassion?

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At its simplest, compassion means ‘to suffer with’.  Having reviewed related literature, Strauss and colleagues* add more detail and define compassion as:

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A cognitive, affective, and behavioural process consisting of the following five elements that refer to both self-compassion and other-compassion:

  • Recognising suffering

  • Understanding the universality of human suffering in human experience

  • Feeling empathy for the person suffering and connecting with their distress (emotional resonance)

  • Tolerating uncomfortable feelings aroused in response to the suffering person (e.g. distress, anger, fear) so remaining open to and accepting of the person suffering

  • Motivation to act/acting to alleviate suffering.

 

Acting compassionately can create feelings of compassion satisfaction (CSat), which is defined as:

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the ability of individuals to identify their self-efficacy, deal appropriately with trauma material, and to get satisfaction from the realisation that the compassion they’ve put in has resulted in another’s growth and/or relief/healing from suffering/adversity.

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Benefits of compassion satisfaction that contribute to workplace psychological wellbeing include:

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  • Increased motivation, purpose in life and positive attitude to work

  • Increased feelings of self-efficacy, competence, and sense of achievement

  • Emotion regulation becomes more automatic so requires less energy

  • Enhanced attention, control, problem-solving and creativity

  • Physiological benefits, such as, increased energy/stamina lower heart rate, less disruption to sleep

  • Increased tolerance of and less hostility towards others

  • Greater hope for positive outcomes, the world is (on the whole) a good place

  • Where an individual has a history of personal trauma, acting compassionately can be cathartic and result in post-traumatic growth.

 

The relevance of compassion satisfaction to educators

 

In my research, participants suggested that CSat was ‘the best feeling in the world’. Knowing that they’d had a positive impact on their pupils who were living with adversity and trauma was what kept them going and motivated them to keep turning up to work.  But this could only sustain them to a certain extent. All reported that feelings associated with CSat were quickly overtaken due to the fast pace and the ‘in your face’ nature of the multiple simultaneous demands of their roles.  These often prevented them from being able to help in the way they wanted to. Even when they were able to help, there were times when research participants found that being compassionate could be detrimental to their psychological wellbeing. 

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* Strauss, C., Lever Taylor, B., Gu, J., Kuyken, W., Baer, R., Jones, F. and Cavanagh, K. (2016). What is compassion and how can we measure it? A review of definitions and measures. [online] Clinical Psychology Review, 47, pp.15–27.

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