Compassion Fatigue in the Health and Social Sector - Volume II

This second edition of 'Compassion Fatigue in the Health and Social Sector' welcomes new research contributions to this field following the success of volume one.The work of health and social care professionals is often accompanied by physical and psychological strain, as they routinely encounter pain, suffering, and traumatic situations that can destabilize a sense of well-being. Repeated exposure to distressing experiences can give rise to compassion fatigue, alongside burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and empathic distress. Over time, professionals in the social and healthcare sectors may become emotionally numb, flooded, or self-protective, entering a dysfunctional emotional loop in which they remain focused on providing care but may lose the capacity to recognize and regulate their own emotional states. Clinical psychology has a central role to play in addressing these difficulties through assessment, formulation, evidence-based psychotherapy, counselling, and rehabilitation-oriented interventions that strengthen emotional intelligence, self-compassion, and psychological flexibility, and protect long-term mental health.Building on volume one, this second collection aims to expand focus on the psychological and mental well-being as part of clinical health practice. Workforce pressures, rising service demand, and the rapid uptake of telepsychology, internet-delivered interventions, eHealth, mHealth, and AI-assisted tools have created both new strains on professionals as well as the potential for new opportunities to assess, prevent, and treat compassion fatigue at scale. Research that advances the clinical understanding of compassion fatigue and the design, evaluation, and implementation of psychological interventions in real clinical settings (e.g., hospitals, primary care, mental health services, rehabilitation units, hospices, and social care) are welcome. This Research Topic runs concurrently with our companion collection, Compassionate Capacity as a Salutogenic Resource: Psychological Mechanisms, Resilience, and Well-Being in Healthcare Systems. This companion Research Topic focuses on the salutogenic, resource-based, and resilience-oriented dimensions of compassionate capacity. Therefore, contributions to this volume two collection should focus on the below areas of interest, including assessment, mechanisms, intervention, and treatment such as efficacy studies of standardized compassion-training programs (e.g. CCT, MSC, CFT) across health and social sectors. This topic welcomes research article submissions addressing themes including, but not limited to:• Conceptualizing and differentiating compassion fatigue from burnout, secondary traumatic stress, moral injury, and empathic distress within a clinical psychology framework• Validated psychometric tools and clinical assessment approaches to capture compassion fatigue across clinical settings and roles• Self-compassion, mindfulness, emotion regulation, and psychological flexibility in shaping vulnerability or resilience to compassion fatigue• Efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and availability of individual, group, couple, or family psychotherapeutic interventions (e.g., CBT, ACT, compassion-focused therapy, EMDR) for professionals• Telepsychology, internet-based interventions, eHealth, mHealth, VR, and AI-assisted tool use to prevent, detect, or treat compassion fatigue• Clinical neuropsychology and psychosomatic perspectives to aid understanding of the cognitive, emotional, and somatic correlates of compassion fatigue• Counselling and supervision models that protect professional well-being and quality of care• Interaction between organizational, clinical-leadership factors, and individual psychological factors around compassion fatigue.• Culturally adapted approaches to reduce compassion fatigue across diverse clinical and social care contexts. Topic editors: María Dolores Ruiz Fernández, Ángela Ortega, Andres Gutiérrez Carmona Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81011/compassion-fatigue-in-the-health-and-social-sector---volume-ii