Empathy fatigue, or empathy burnout, isn’t something to feel guilty about. In fact, it’s a very understandable consequence of the difficult times we’re living through. But how do we navigate through it?
In March, Jess*, 38, a divorcee from Auckland, had Covid for the second time, as did her two school-aged sons. She still feels rundown.
Her home wasn’t badly damaged in the floods, unlike some of her neighbours’ and friends’ homes. She spent a lot of time helping them, for instance dropping around casseroles, even thought her time was limited and grocery bills were high.
Jess is a secondary-school teacher who, since Covid hit, has had to factor in students’ changing circumstances and emotions. That’s been a lot. Also, friends and colleagues often come to her for advice and emotional support, as she’s a good listener. “But a few weeks ago,” she says, “I suddenly realised – and this sounds terrible – that I couldn’t be bothered helping people anymore, other than my sons and students. It wasn’t just about feeling tired. It was like a tap had run dry. I started feeling irritable, impatient and easily annoyed when people offloaded on me.”
What with worrying about Covid, natural disasters and her children’s future in a warming world, Jess felt “overwhelmed”. She has just decided to tell the people who often seek support from her that she can’t manage that right now. “But I feel terrible about telling them that. Where has my empathy gone?”
Empathy – nice to have or utterly essential?
What exactly is empathy? Dr Denise Quinlan, co-founder of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience, says “empathy is [having] an awareness and understanding of another person’s emotions. Being able to see things from their perspective without judgment. Standing in their shoes.” Humans, as social animals, can’t do without empathy, Denise says. “Empathy is a cohesive social glue that enables connection and helps resolve conflict. It’s important for survival and resilience, as well as helping us feel seen and valued.”
To clarify, sympathy and empathy are different things. “Sympathy is ‘feeling for’ and E is ‘feeling with’,” Denise says. “Empathy can make people feel included, while sympathy can actually make people feel disconnected.” Also, compassion and empathy are different. “Compassion is about action: the desire to relieve someone’s suffering. Empathy is about feeling the pain.”
Let’s not conflate the terms Compassion Fatigue and Empathy Fatigue. The article ‘What Is Empathy Fatigue? (And 12 Ways To Overcome It)’, explains these are “two distinct yet related concepts”.
“Compassion fatigue is an emotional, physical, and spiritual exhaustion that can result from caring for others who are suffering. It is caused by prolonged exposure to intense emotional distress and can be precipitated by a traumatic event or prolonged stress. On the other hand, empathy fatigue is a state of emotional and physical exhaustion that can result from feeling for versus feeling with people and taking on others’ emotions as our own.”
Denise describes Empathy Fatigue as “mental, emotional and physical exhaustion experienced by someone overburdened with others’ others’ pain or distress”. It usually affects people such as nurses, doctors, aged-care workers, social workers, counsellors, other healthcare professionals, or others in (paid or unpaid) ‘caring’ work. Covid obviously intensified the pressure on them.
“Pre 2020,” Denise says, “Empathy Fatigue largely only affected people in helping and caring professions. But the pandemic changed that for many people. Now Empathy Fatigue is also affecting people dealing with different situations – such as teachers who are supporting students and families.”
It’s difficult to know what symptoms like feeling exhausted, disconnected, or ineffective mean. Are you depressed? Burnt out? Is something else going on? Talk to your doctor or therapist. But what characterises the current wave of Empathy Fatigue, Denise says, “is that people have been shouldering an excessive burden of other people’s pain”.
“Lack of self-awareness and poor boundaries are often cited as factors driving Empathy Fatigue. However, looking at the huge numbers of intelligent, caring, smart people currently experiencing empathy fatigue, it feels rude to say this is due to a lack of self-awareness, and not setting boundaries. It feels rude because, with the pandemic and natural disasters, people have been expected to put aside their own needs. The problem is that emotional demands have been so prolonged that there’s been no rest and recovery time.”
Often, people experiencing Empathy Fatigue feel guilty about it or even too ashamed to admit it. “It’s common to feel heartless, guilty, horrible, or ask ‘who am I as a person?’” Denise says. However, rather than beating ourselves up for feeling this way, let’s flip that notion on its head. “When someone experiences Empathy Fatigue, it’s not that you’re not a good person, in fact quite the opposite – you’ve actually done too much for others.” And caring so much is clearly not something to blame yourself for! “We now actually need people who don’t have Empathy Fatigue to look after those who have it,” Denise says. “In many organisations, right now, no one’s putting their hand up for that job because they’re all exhausted.” The same may be true of friends and family.
Empathy burnout?
What about when you don’t experience full-blown Empathy Fatigue, but are still noticing a drop in your empathy levels?
When I mention terms including ‘decreased empathy’, ‘empathy deficit’ or ‘empathy burnout’, Denise says “it’s helpful not to get sucked into terms like these but, rather, to ask what’s happening, why is this happening, why does it matter, what are the consequences, and what can we do about it?”
So, what is happening? Perhaps you can’t muster up as much empathy as you used to, or normally would, for others undergoing difficulties. They could be family members, friends, colleagues, clients, neighbours, or others.
A decrease in empathy can also affect people whose jobs have simply required more of them since the pandemic. Perhaps as a team leader, you’re trying hard to support team members but not getting that support yourself.
If you’re silently feeling this way, well, it’s more common than you might think. That’s because as we as individuals deal with things like Covid, floods, inflation, changes at work, and the rising cost of living – just for starters – we may feel our system is overloaded. We may just be trying to get through the day, the week, the month or even the year. We may feel we have nothing ‘left over’ for others.
Kelly*, a 28-year-old academic from Wellington, usually acts almost as a therapist to a friend who is a divorced single mum and to a sister with health issues. “Recently I’ve been feeling impatient, like I can’t be bothered with them – which sounds terrible, right? They matter to me, but I can’t be there for them like I used to be. The other thing is when I read the news – about climate change, natural disasters, Ukraine, etc – I’ve found I feel overwhelmed. So I don’t read news much anymore – yet I worry about people becoming disengaged with important issues. I feel guilty about all of this!”
Clinical social worker Julia Childs Heyl recently wrote a medically reviewed article for verywellmind.com, called ‘After Two Years of COVID, Are We Running Out of Empathy?’. “Decreased empathy,” she writes, “presents as an inability to witness and aid the suffering of others because we are overwhelmed with our current circumstances”. She says some of us are “developing a reduced bandwidth for reality”. Consequently, some of us are disengaging with the most-confronting news on topics including climate change, natural disasters, Putin, Iran, Trump, Israel-Palestine. “Limit your exposure if you’re feeling overwhelmed or triggered,” Denise says. That doesn’t make you heartless. It means you’re putting your wellbeing first.
Steps to take
What can we do to regain our empathy without becoming drained? And how can we tell people that we can’t help them much right now?
Meet or talk to the person who needs support at a time when you’re not exhausted or stressed. Change that time if needed.
Discuss and communicate boundaries: for instance, the length of time available to speak, or prioritising the topics to speak about. If you struggle with setting boundaries, remind yourself what your boundary is protecting: perhaps your energy, wellbeing, or family time.
You may say ‘I care about you, but my tank is empty so right now I can’t help you as much as you need’. Focus on what you can manage – perhaps helping them think of other supports, making a plan, agreeing a future check-in time.
Prioritise self-care and self-compassion.
Remind yourself that your empathy will likely come back. It’s not a race – take your time.
If you’re the person seeking support? Ask directly what the other person can manage. Dr Emma Woodward, Clinical Director of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing & Resilience, recently wrote in a Linkedin post: ‘Never overestimate the power of emotional consent’ alongside an image of a phone with the text message “I’m feeling stressed, can I offload onto you?” If they don’t have the bandwidth, it doesn’t mean they don’t care.
