Compassion Fatigue, the Ambience Exercise & Biofields
Teresa L. Frisch, RN, RMT, IARP 4.8.09
Revised tlf 5.26.09
Years of working in health care has ingrained the reality of Burnout (“Burnout (psychology)”) in my psyche, but cross-scientific research is providing new information for consideration regarding both the causative factors and impact of what was formerly known as Burnout, now known as “Compassion Fatigue.” Extending beyond the previous discipline of psychology and into the interactive realms of anatomy, physiology and biofields, the scope and mindset regarding Compassion Fatigue has also expanded beyond the limits of healthcare providers and service professions as being the only populations affected. Compassion Fatigue affects each of us as individuals and collectively as groups on a global scale (“Compassion fatigue”).
Nurses are familiar with Compassion Fatigue and the thought processes that lead to the emotional and psychological burden that somehow it was “our fault.” Recent research may indicate that environmental factors might weigh in more heavily than was originally thought. For the most part, nurses are an intuitive and empathetic population, frequently locked into their own subspecialties with no time left to explore what others are learning. For the sake of my colleagues in healthcare and service professions in general, as well as the awake and aware global citizen, I feel strongly that I need to share what I have learned about potential physical causative factors regarding Compassion Fatigue.
When I tested the waters of my information and thinking with Sherri, a fellow nurse and friend of many years, she blinked and looked at me as if it were the most common-sense thing in the world. “Sure,” she said, “once we learn about it we can begin working with it.” I smiled to myself because that is the way that we nurses think. We’ve learned that nothing is stagnant in healthcare so you might as well bring it on and we’ll deal with it.
As I first mentioned, in my earlier years of nursing practice we called it “Burnout.” Nurses became “burned out,” leaving acute care settings for less stressful environments or they left the nursing profession altogether. Emotionally exhausted, physically drained, feeling as if their heads as well as their feet were ready to fall off, nurses threw in the proverbial towel. Sometimes the cause was institutional: bureaucratic inefficiency that created mazes of internal hoops and hurdles and tasks, nothing short of pure busywork that seemed insurmountable to a nurse “who just wanted to take care of people.” Sometimes it was over identification with a particular patient population until a nurse reached his or her personal tipping point and said “I just can’t do this anymore.” Sometimes it was directly related to years of exposure to death and trauma, resulting in gradual desensitization as a coping mechanism for survival in a world where suffering never ends.
The bottom line was, and still is, that nurses leave a profession that many feel they are born for exhausted, broken, and once again, often with the silent guilt that somehow it was their fault. “Stress-related,” they should have seen it coming, should have been stronger, should have developed coping skills, should have done something to ward it off. They leave the nursing profession feeling as if they are failures.
Several years ago the terminology changed and “Compassion Fatigue or Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder replaced burnout” (“Compassion fatigue). Marked by increasing feelings of negativity, hopelessness and cynicism, Compassion Fatigue encompasses all manner of professions and affects both personal and professional relationships. Natural disasters and wars are not “new” news, but increased media exposure to graphic depictions of violence and suffering has elevated the scope and ramifications of Compassion Fatigue to a global level. Finding ways to implement and maintain an individual sense of hope and purpose in the face of profound suffering is not just a new-age feel-good, it is a critical component of holistic health and well-being that extends to every person, not just healthcare providers or those in service professions.
Research regarding biofields, remote viewing and consciousness may give us further consideration as we develop strategies for coping with the emotional and psychological stress of individual and global suffering. My intent is to share the information and points of view from the perspective of several scientific disciplines in the brief synopses below. Most of the information that I will present is addressed in further detail on this website. I hope the information given is enough to pique your interest and send you scurrying to read each expert source in its entirety.
Nursing as a Spiritual Practice: A Contemporary Application of Florence Nightingale’s Views
Utilizing Janet F. Quinn’s “two behavioral modes” (Quinn), Janet Macrae, PhD, RN, presents the topic of Compassion and Over-Identification and discusses 1) the nurses’ confusion regarding compassion when exposed to a patient’s suffering and 2) the negative impact of that confusion when delivering patient-centered care. In sympathetic mode, the nurse identifies with the patient and feels the same as he or she, absorbing the negative energy, thoughts and feelings of the patient. Eventually the nurse becomes fatigued from both the absorption of negativity and resulting expenditure of personal energy to overcome it, both at work and at home. In defensive mode, the nurse is uncomfortable and actively exercises self-protective behaviors, including avoidance and distancing. Maintaining these behaviors can lead to fatigue and guilt regarding his or her opinion of their professional nursing practice. The holistic mode recognizes the boundaries and separateness of the two individuals. Per Quinn, ‘the nurse in this mode acts in a highly conscious manner. He or she is aware of the patient’s state of being and of his or her personal response’ (Quinn). Per Macrae:
When we have a secure sense of our own identity, the needfulness that triggers the sympathetic mode and the vulnerability that triggers the defensive mode are both diminished. And when personal needs fade into the background, we can more fully act in the best interest of another…In actively pursuing and developing our spiritual selves we best achieve Nightingale’s perspective of the compassionate, holistic mode of patient-centered care (Macrae 72). |
Neurocardiology and the Institute of HeartMath
In its monograph, The Energetic Heart, Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., points to the interactive process of emotional and physical factors that might lead to compassion fatigue, both singular and collective:
“This fascinating monograph, The Energetic Heart explains the bioelectromagnetic interactions within and between people. Did you know that when you’re not consciously communicating with others, our physiological systems are interacting in subtle and surprising ways? Or that the electromagnetic signal produced by your heart is registered in the brain waves of people around you? Or that your physiological responses sync up with your mate's during empathetic interactions? Discover why the heart's electromagnetic field is believed to act as a central synchronizing signal within the body, an important carrier of emotional information and a key mediator of energetic interactions between people. This 20-page monograph, explores the Institute of HeartMath and others' research on bioelectromagnetic interactions and how living and acting from a coherent heart state can affect those around us.”
(McCraty)
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Synchronous Connections: Nursing’s Little Secret
Janet Wessel Krejci, PhD, RN, brings a discussion of expert nurses, as outlined in Benner’s Fifth Stage of Clinical Competency (Benner 33), to the mix of indicators that could impact the causative factors regarding Compassion Fatigue. Nurses who interact with and care for patients over longer periods of time begin to notice synchronous events. Krejci points out that little attention has been paid to this group of recognized and valued human observers, as she is able to offer examples of precognitive synchronicities between the nurse and patient, but a lack of definitive language to describe events is a deterring factor in documentation. Collections of nurse testimonies indicate that their “connections made with patients” (80), are outside of mainstream science and that most of these events do not have a basis in their charting. They feel that they may be alone in their experiences. They do not talk about them and until a language for appropriate documentation of these precognitive, intuitive feelings that lead to patient-centered interventions is developed, they may well indeed remain what could be “nursing’s little secret.”
Global Coherency
Based on individual and group coherency, the Global Consciousness Project (GCP) and the Global Coherence Initiative (GCI) have been collecting data that shows changes in patterns prior to and during large scale global events. According to Dean Radin, Ph.D., in The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena: “These studies have profound implications for the understanding of social order and disorder.” Radin moves his readers into and through an understanding that we are only beginning to see a possible physical link regarding large numbers of people thinking both positively and negatively, and the impact it may have both directly and indirectly upon us as individuals as well as collectively on a global scale (174).
“While it is not difficult to conceive that life-forms embedded in the earth’s magnetic fields could be affected by modulations in these fields, it is a more far-reaching proposition to suggest that the earth’s fields can be influenced or modulated by human emotions. Nevertheless, GCI researchers theorize that when large numbers of humans respond to a global event with a common emotional feeling, the collective response can affect the activity in the earth’s field. In cases where the event evokes negative responses, this could be thought of as a planetary stress wave, and in cases where a positive wave is created, it could create a global coherence wave. This perspective is supported by research at the Institute of HeartMath, which has shown that emotions not only create coherence or incoherence in our bodies, but, like radio waves, also radiate outward and are detected by the nervous systems of others in our environment.
It is now clear that our nervous systems detect these electromagnetic waves generated by others in our environment, but there is also evidence of a global effect when large numbers of people create similar outgoing waves. For example, research conducted by Roger Nelson and his team at Princeton University for the Global Consciousness Project utilized a worldwide network of random number generators. Their findings have provided convincing evidence that human consciousness and emotionality create or interact with a global field, which affect the randomness of these electronic devices. The largest change in the random number generators occurred during the terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Even more intriguing was the fact that the random number generators were significantly affected some four to five hours prior to the attack, suggesting a worldwide collective intuition about the impending event (see Figure 1).”
-Global Coherence Initiative (GCI)
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Coordinate / Controlled Remote Viewing
Controlled Remote Viewing
The United States Government initiated development of the scientific methodology of Coordinate / Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV) in 1972 in response to the Soviet development of psychic espionage. Part of that methodology was intended as a means of accessing the plans and intentions of the enemy and objective protocols were developed which included the ability to pick up “emotional impact signals” from people at the site (23).
The Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)
Elaine Aron, PhD., has researched and described HSP’s, or Highly Sensitive People as having overly-sensitive nervous systems, meaning that we “notice levels of stimulation that go unobserved by others” (Aron, “The Highly Sensitive Person” 7) and sometimes almost “have no skin” (Desy). Our senses and awareness of the environment and people around us is heightened, and to cope and recover we need time in a less stimulating environment every day. A genetic predisposition toward increased sensitivity would bear serious thought for further consideration regarding the development of conditions surrounding Compassion Fatigue. On her website, Aron states:
If you find you are highly sensitive, or your child is, you need to begin by knowing the following:
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- Your trait is normal. It is found in 15 to 20% of the population--too many to be a disorder, but not enough to be well understood by the majority of those around you.
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- It is innate. In fact, biologists have found it to be in most or all animals, from fruit flies and fish to dogs, cats, horses, and primates. This trait reflects a certain type of survival strategy, being observant before acting. The brains of highly sensitive persons (HSPs) actually work a little differently than others'.
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- You are more aware than others of subtleties. This is mainly because your brain processes information and reflects on it more deeply. So even if you wear glasses, for example, you see more than others by noticing more.
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- You are also more easily overwhelmed. If you notice everything, you are naturally going to be over stimulated when things are too intense, complex, chaotic, or novel for a long time.
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- This trait is not a new discovery, but it has been misunderstood. Because HSPs prefer to look before entering new situations, they are often called "shy." But shyness is learned, not innate. In fact, 30% of HSPs are extraverts, although the trait is often mislabeled as introversion. It has also been called inhibitedness, fearfulness, or neuroticism. Some HSPs behave in these ways, but it is not innate to do so and not the basic trait.
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- Sensitivity is valued differently in different cultures. In cultures where it is not valued, HSPs tend to have low self-esteem. They are told "don't be so sensitive" so that they feel abnormal. (Aron)
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The Ambience Exercise: Your True Sixth Sense
In his book The Seventh Sense, Lyn Buchanan, CEO of Problems>Solutions>Innovations and former controlled remote viewer for the United States Military Intelligence Unit Star Gate, explains what he feels is your “true sixth sense:” ambience. He feels that the psychic sense is the seventh sense. When he teaches CRV, he encourages all of his students in several exercises that are designed to make them so “uncommonly aware of your surroundings that you will probably feel as if you have been asleep all of your life” (251- 63). Per Patricia Benner, PhD., RN, expert nurses, those who have been in the role three to five years, function at and within a holistic, intuitive level (Benner 33), picking up subtle cues and changes in the environment each time they interact with their patients. In “Explicating Benner’s Concept of Expert Practice: Intuition in Emergency Nursing,” Lyneham, et al further defined the transfer of information from the subconscious to the conscious mind during patient-centered care. Expert nurses “have radar” and they know it.
I will give you the following example. Upon entering the patient’s room, the expert nurse will instinctively pause momentarily to consciously conduct a Primary Survey by visualizing the patient and observing changes while subconsciously intuiting information from the environment. In a matter of seconds the nurse has:
- Conducted a Primary Survey, assessed airway, breathing, color and resulting circulation, level of consciousness and response to the environment.
- Listened for the hiss of intermittent suction cycling on and off; the whirr of the ventilator inflating lungs; the beep (or not) of the cardiac monitor and the chuck-chuck rhythm of the intravenous pump.
- Noted with peripheral vision the steady movement of electrical activity across the cardiac monitor screen.
- Consciously moved to register numbers and readings and determined whether or not they fall within acceptable parameters.
That is an overwhelming amount of data collected over a short span of time, and for the expert nurse it becomes routine. Expert nurses have often developed this hyper vigilant sense of ambient awareness that Buchanan speaks of, and as such are often “in sync” with their patients and environment, but as stated by Macrae they function in a holistic mode (see above), maintaining their sense of separateness of I / You in the nurse/ patient relationship. I would posit that nurses would do well to develop their sense of ambience to achieve the intuitive, holistic level of the expert nurse and possibly help offset the potential of Compassion Fatigue
The information that I have offered here is not meant to foster the mindset of hard and fast rules pointing toward or leading to definitive action plans regarding Compassion Fatigue. It was and is offered as a sharing of information, to be considered in the melting pot for further thought and research as we continue to look for ways to improve and maintain the health of our planet and ourselves.
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