Transcending Empathy Fatigue by Cultivating Empathy Resiliency
Enroll in the Reading-Based Online Self-Study and complete the training on your own schedule.
12 CE hours available for behavioral health clinicians completing the Online Self-Study.
This is a reading-based course that requires the students to also purchase and complete the book "Transcending Empathy Fatigue by Cultivating Empathy Resiliency".
An exclusive 40% discount for the book is offered to those enrolling in this CE course.
In traditional Native American teaching, each time a medicine man/woman heals someone, you give away a piece of yourself until, at some point, you will require healing. The journey to becoming a modern-day healer requires an understanding that the professional helper, at some point in time, will also become wounded and require healing.
Dr. Stebnicki coined the term "empathy fatigue" in 1998 and has been conceptually describing, evaluating, and treating the experience of this phenomenon ever since. Empathy fatigue results from a state of psychological, emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and occupational exhaustion that occurs as the professional providers’ wounds are continually revisited by their clients’ life stories of stress, traumatic stress, grief, loss, chronic illness, and disability.
The number of extraordinary stressful and traumatic events has grown exponentially since the war on terrorism began on September 11, 2001. There has also been an increase in the intensity of natural disasters, gun violence, and political divisiveness, as well as surviving through the phases of a pandemic virus. Consequently, there has been a paradigm shift in helping professions to serve those who have unique medical, physical, and psychological needs.
The consequence of this unique empathic stress and vicarious trauma is experienced by many professional helpers as empathy fatigue. Thus, it is essential that medical and mental healthcare providers are mindful of cultivating optimal levels of personal and professional self-care. Overall, Transcending Empathy Fatigue utilizes guided self-exploration and self-assessment activities that assist in identifying, preventing, and treating the experience of empathy fatigue.
Register for the 12 CE Reading-Based Online Self-Study for $30
Payment Options are listed at checkout
Book discount is provided upon course enrollment
Select each tab for course details
Upon completion of this training, professionals will be able to do the following:
Assess your personal and professional growth potential through self-exploration.
Implement self-care and wellness practices that are both practical for your life and create deeper meaning for personal integration and insight.
Demonstrate self-care practices for the people you serve by cultivating a therapeutic relationship and earning the circle of trust.
- Identify multiple therapeutic resources that empower both you and the individuals you serve for optimal wellness.
- Identify core elements of the person-centered relationship that both hinder and support rapport building, facilitating empathic responses, and earning the circle of trust for cultivating an optimal therapeutic alliance.
- Appraise salient features in the functional and psychometric assessment of empathy fatigue as it relates to phases of extraordinarily stressful and traumatic events that hinder the professional’s optimal functioning as a competent and ethical professional.
- Analyze the experience and impact of empathy fatigue as it relates to the professional’s ethical responsibility for providing competent services during intense therapeutic interactions with clients or patients' stressful and traumatic experiences.
- Illustrate approaches and provide guidelines for clinical supervisors in the supervisor-supervisee relationship as it relates to recognizing and addressing issues concerning empathy fatigue.
- Recognize self-care and wellness approaches that integrate the mind, body, and spirit to decrease the experience of empathy fatigue while increasing empathy resiliency.
Course Details
Upon completion of this training, professionals will be able to do the following:
- Assess your personal and professional growth potential through self-exploration.
- Implement self-care and wellness practices that are both practical for your life and create deeper meaning for personal integration and insight.
- Demonstrate self-care practices for the people you serve by cultivating a therapeutic relationship and earning the circle of trust.
- Identify multiple therapeutic resources that empower both you and the individuals you serve for optimal wellness.
- Identify core elements of the person-centered relationship that both hinder and support rapport building, facilitating empathic responses, and earning the circle of trust for cultivating an optimal therapeutic alliance.
- Appraise salient features in the functional and psychometric assessment of empathy fatigue as it relates to phases of extraordinarily stressful and traumatic events that hinder the professional’s optimal functioning as a competent and ethical professional.
- Analyze the experience and impact of empathy fatigue as it relates to the professional’s ethical responsibility for providing competent services during intense therapeutic interactions with clients or patients' stressful and traumatic experiences.
- Illustrate approaches and provide guidelines for clinical supervisors in the supervisor-supervisee relationship as it relates to recognizing and addressing issues concerning empathy fatigue.
- Recognize self-care and wellness approaches that integrate the mind, body, and spirit to decrease the experience of empathy fatigue while increasing empathy resiliency.
Book Author
Mark A. Stebnicki, Ph.D., LCMHC, DCMHS, CRC, CMCC
Mark A. Stebnicki, Ph.D., LCMHC, DCMHS, CRC, CMCC, is professor emeritus and former coordinator of the Military and Trauma Counseling (MTC) Certificate Program (which he developed in 2015) in the Department of Addictions and Rehabilitation at East Carolina University. He also developed the national Clinical Military Counseling Certificate (CMCC) in 2016, a 12-hour CE program offered nationally through the Telehealth Certificate Institute. Dr. Stebnicki has been a counselor, educator, researcher, and practitioner with over 35 years of experience in the fields of rehabilitation and mental health counseling.
He has practiced and published in areas related to stress, traumatic stress, disaster mental health response, and the psychosocial aspects of chronic illness and disability. He has extensive experience working with active-duty military service members, veterans, veterans with disabilities, and military families. Dr. Stebnicki has published 11 professional books, over 40 journal articles, and book chapters and has provided over 120 national and regional presentations. He has served on many statewide and national professional counseling boards.