Those who spend their entire lives giving to others often fail to exercise due compassion on themselves. This neglect lies at the root of ‘Compassion Fatigue’, a term first coined in 1992 to describe nurses who were worn out psychologically from tending to patients in an emergency ward. Compassion is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “a strong feeling of sympathy and sadness for the suffering or bad luck of others and a wish to help them.” It is the cornerstone of the successful patient-therapist bond yet fatigue can lead to burnout, with negative results for both carers and patients. Consequences in the carer can include detachment, suffering from traumatic memories or suffering the physiological consequences of chronic stress. Greater support is needed for those who are traumatized or psychologically worn out by the continuous demand to give; one of the many ways this issue can be approached, is through the creation of art.

In order to recover from compassion fatigue, the first step for health workers and other persons suffering from this condition, is to realize that they, too, are worthy of care and compassion. Research indicates that the practice of self-compassion boosts self-esteem and lowers levels of stress hormone, cortisol (chronically high levels of cortisol are linked to heart disease, cancer and diabetes). To develop self-compassion, carers need to learn a number of key skills, including focusing on self-growth as opposed to self-improvement, being less self-critical and learning to forgive oneself for errors committed. Since the creative arts are so cathartic, they provide an excellent avenue through which to express pent-up emotions such as repressed anger, frustration and sadness; those suffering from compassion fatigue often feel they have to be infallible, strong and positive; they can find it difficult to admit that they, too, feel vulnerable, hopeless and isolated by the circumstances of their day-to-day life. Art allows those who are most silent, to find their voice.

An artwork can provide the perfect backdrop to express ideas and emotions that cause anxiety. In a typical art therapy session, client and therapist often use work created by the client, as a starting point to approach topics that can be difficult or traumatic to bring up ‘out of the blue’. During these discussions, the therapist can use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), to enlighten a patient on the destructive thoughts and patterns that can keep them in a rut, and to suggest new ways of tackling these thoughts and feelings before they become manifested in depression, anxiety or fatigue. In this sense, the possibilities of art are endless, as noted by Heather L. Stuckey et.al in a groundbreaking report on the subject: “Art can be a refuge from the intense emotions associated with illness. There are no limits to the imagination in finding creative ways of expressing grief. In particular, molding clay can be a powerful way to help people express these feelings through tactile involvement at a somatic level, as well as to facilitate verbal communication and cathartic release and reveal unconscious materials and symbols that cannot be expressed through words.”

In the above-mentioned study, the researchers note that there are so many ways that art can heal those facing intense experiences such as cancer. First, it can help patients focus on the positive; second, it can enhance self-esteem by allowing them to demonstrate achievement; third, it allows the artist to build an identity which is separate from illness; finally, it allows them to express their grief symbolically, which is specially powerful when they are not ready to express themselves in words.

Studies have shown that the arts can reduce distress, lessen the need for pain medication and to promote well-being. Additionally, the creative process provides a unique environment that many persons suffering from compassion fatigue crave: space, and silence. When an artist becomes fully immersed in a project and enters ‘the Zone’, it can seem like time and space are frozen, and all matters extraneous to one’s artwork, suddenly take on far lesser importance. In a sense, creation can be similar to mindful meditation, which focuses on the present and shuns negative and anxious thoughts, so that the process itself leads to a state of lasting calm.