by Shad Meshad, President, National Veterans Foundation

July 21, 2009

Compassion Fatigue is linked closely with PTSD because the caregivers that suffer from it are often treating victims of traumatic stress, and because the symptoms and treatment of compassion fatigue are similar to those of PTSD. 

I started treating Vets suffering from PTSD 40 years ago, at a time when very few people were aware the condition existed.  We have made progress in that time, and now the country’s focus on traumatic stress is mostly on those who have been in the public spotlight—soldiers returning from combat, firefighters, police officers, and citizens who were at Ground Zero on 9/11, and victims of school shootings.  We should place attention on the plight of these people, but there is also a significant psychological impact on caregivers that experience the secondary stress of those horrific events. 

Think of a traumatic event as having a ripple effect, like throwing a stone in a pool of water.  The people at the center of the impact are those most severely affected. But, the paramedic and the nurse who treat that person, the family members that care for them, and the counselors who treat them years after the event are affected as well, and the effects can be debilitating.  Some traumatologists even theorize that people who watch shocking events repeatedly on TV, like those of us who saw the planes crash into the Twin Towers over and over can suffer secondary traumatic stress.

The symptoms of Compassion Fatigue, like PTSD, can vary.   Some of the symptoms are a decrease in empathy, irritability, constant feelings of stress and anxiety, the inability to focus, feelings of doubt and inadequacy, and reoccurring nightmares or flashbacks.  Treatment for secondary trauma stress can range from traditional talk therapy and medication to more experimental treatments like Thought Field Therapy, with which I’ve had a lot of success.  The first steps for someone who thinks they might be suffering from either PTSD or secondary traumatic stress is to be aware of the effect it’s having on your feelings, to begin taking better care of yourself, and to seek some sort of treatment.   I teach a two-day course on Compassion Fatigue treatment and that is what I’ll be talking about in this keynote speech in August.

The connection to the work of the National Veterans Foundation is a direct line from the first soldiers I counseled, back in Vietnam, to the experience I have gained from helping returning Veterans of combat who have post traumatic stress, to the hotline we have at the NVF for Vets in crisis, to now teaching techniques to help the first responders, medical staff and therapists who work with Veterans and others suffering from PTSD.  

We live in a complex and interconnected world. The emotional and psychological ripples that are created when an IED goes off in Baghdad extend far beyond that place and time.  They affect people here at home who become connected to the men and women who suffered through the blast.   Because of this interconnection, we can add one more thing to the list of many things we have to thank Veterans of past wars for— the techniques that were developed to help them recover from the horrors of their wars. Those techniques can now be used to help today’s Vets, and those caregivers that help bring them back home.