Jan 13, 2017 06:48 PM
How Animal Rescuers Are Burning Out Their Empathy
http://m.nautil.us/blog/how-animal-rescu...ir-empathy
EXCERPT: No one likes to hear about the freezers full of euthanized animals. It’s an uncomfortable reality, but often animal rescue workers have no option but to kill sick or badly wounded animals—as humanely as possible. [...] But looking into the eyes of hundreds of distressed creatures day in and day out can make that difficult.
People don’t always recognize compassion fatigue, says Jeff Boehm [...] Sometimes referred to as empathy burnout or secondary trauma, the stress of the fatigue can manifest in depression or addiction. Patricia Smith [...] says most people don’t appreciate the strain this work causes. “Not only do [animal welfare workers] suffer daily in the work they do, they also often deal with the public’s total disregard and criticism of their work. Shelter work was one of the most distressing and sorrow-filled work I’ve ever done.” One of Boehm’s biggest concerns is that if people don’t accept compassion fatigue as a very real issue, it—and its downstream psychic consequences—can’t be adequately treated.
Part of the fatigue stems from the almost Sisyphean nature of animal rescue. “It is a business where it feels like one is never finished, especially in an organization like ours,” Boehm says. With 60 staff members and over a thousand volunteers, the non-profit Marine Mammal Center has rescued and treated more than 20,000 marine mammals in its 40 years of existence. “At the end of a long shift, whether it be staff or volunteers, there’s this feeling of, ‘There’s more yet to do. There’s more that I can alleviate. I need to be there personally,’” he says. “And it’s simply not tenable.”
[...] "Every animal coming in is giving us some insight into what’s going on with marine mammal populations, but also, by extension, into ocean health in general,” says Boehm. “The scientific rigor around our work almost exacerbates that natural tendency to keep one’s emotions in check, to be the stoic clinician or practitioner, or animal caretaker, to a fault.”
Veterinarians, too, suffer stress from their work with animals, according to recent research. A 2014 study of over 10,000 of them found that one in 10 U.S. veterinarians might suffer from serious psychological distress, and one in six have experienced suicidal thoughts since they graduated. They’re also four times as likely to commit suicide than the general population, according to a study published in the journal Veterinary Record.
Though there aren’t solid numbers to back it, acknowledgement of compassion fatigue across caregiving professions seems to have risen exponentially, says Smith...
The Rituals That Ward Off Bad Luck Aren’t Arbitrary
http://m.nautil.us/blog/the-rituals-that...-arbitrary
EXCERPT: [...] A small but growing number of social science studies have looked at the underlying psychological mechanisms behind luck-related rituals. They have the usual caveats of using small numbers of participants—often undergraduates—and drawing associations rather than causal relationships. But they raise excellent questions: To what extent can rituals change our outlook on luck? Are they helpful? If so, how and why? [...] But more recently, a research group at Dominican University failed to replicate these findings with similar golf-based tasks [...] The small sample sizes of the German study may have been to blame, or the particular groups of participants [...] Regardless, luck rituals may reduce people’s anxiety about certain situations, which can in turn have an effect on performance, but there are probably better ways to promote one’s chances of doing well in an activity...
http://m.nautil.us/blog/how-animal-rescu...ir-empathy
EXCERPT: No one likes to hear about the freezers full of euthanized animals. It’s an uncomfortable reality, but often animal rescue workers have no option but to kill sick or badly wounded animals—as humanely as possible. [...] But looking into the eyes of hundreds of distressed creatures day in and day out can make that difficult.
People don’t always recognize compassion fatigue, says Jeff Boehm [...] Sometimes referred to as empathy burnout or secondary trauma, the stress of the fatigue can manifest in depression or addiction. Patricia Smith [...] says most people don’t appreciate the strain this work causes. “Not only do [animal welfare workers] suffer daily in the work they do, they also often deal with the public’s total disregard and criticism of their work. Shelter work was one of the most distressing and sorrow-filled work I’ve ever done.” One of Boehm’s biggest concerns is that if people don’t accept compassion fatigue as a very real issue, it—and its downstream psychic consequences—can’t be adequately treated.
Part of the fatigue stems from the almost Sisyphean nature of animal rescue. “It is a business where it feels like one is never finished, especially in an organization like ours,” Boehm says. With 60 staff members and over a thousand volunteers, the non-profit Marine Mammal Center has rescued and treated more than 20,000 marine mammals in its 40 years of existence. “At the end of a long shift, whether it be staff or volunteers, there’s this feeling of, ‘There’s more yet to do. There’s more that I can alleviate. I need to be there personally,’” he says. “And it’s simply not tenable.”
[...] "Every animal coming in is giving us some insight into what’s going on with marine mammal populations, but also, by extension, into ocean health in general,” says Boehm. “The scientific rigor around our work almost exacerbates that natural tendency to keep one’s emotions in check, to be the stoic clinician or practitioner, or animal caretaker, to a fault.”
Veterinarians, too, suffer stress from their work with animals, according to recent research. A 2014 study of over 10,000 of them found that one in 10 U.S. veterinarians might suffer from serious psychological distress, and one in six have experienced suicidal thoughts since they graduated. They’re also four times as likely to commit suicide than the general population, according to a study published in the journal Veterinary Record.
Though there aren’t solid numbers to back it, acknowledgement of compassion fatigue across caregiving professions seems to have risen exponentially, says Smith...
The Rituals That Ward Off Bad Luck Aren’t Arbitrary
http://m.nautil.us/blog/the-rituals-that...-arbitrary
EXCERPT: [...] A small but growing number of social science studies have looked at the underlying psychological mechanisms behind luck-related rituals. They have the usual caveats of using small numbers of participants—often undergraduates—and drawing associations rather than causal relationships. But they raise excellent questions: To what extent can rituals change our outlook on luck? Are they helpful? If so, how and why? [...] But more recently, a research group at Dominican University failed to replicate these findings with similar golf-based tasks [...] The small sample sizes of the German study may have been to blame, or the particular groups of participants [...] Regardless, luck rituals may reduce people’s anxiety about certain situations, which can in turn have an effect on performance, but there are probably better ways to promote one’s chances of doing well in an activity...
