Compassion Fatigue Solutions

What I've been up to
I'm off to Winnipeg tomorrow to offer a Compassion Fatigue Train the Trainer to the Canadian Association of School Social Workers and Attendance Counsellors. If my last visit to the Peg is anything to base expectations on, I am looking forward to a very welcoming and enthusiastic group.

Thursday night I had the privilege of presenting to a group of occupational and physiotherapists who work as preceptors for Queen's University. I would like to thank them personally here for their warm hospitality and willingness to laugh at my bad jokes! (ie the microphone). I also would like to say a special hello to Catherine D. organiser of this keynote and someone who confessed that she reads this blog - [Hi Catherine, please thank your husband/hockey coach extraordinaire for driving my son to hockey Thursday.]

Next week, I will be in Ottawa on Tuesday, working with a non-profit housing group, Toronto on Thursday, presenting to a school board and Montreal on Saturday, offering a workshop to a women's shelter. Fittingly enough, Saturday is December 6th. For some of us (Montrealers and Violence against Women activists everywhere) this date has particular painful resonance. If you are not familiar with this, I invite you to google December 6th 1989 Montreal. (How's that for low impact disclosure?)

Then, I will take a wee break and bake cookies and try and figure out what on earth is a good teacher gift. Well, that's not entirely true, I still have a "day job" as a therapist but I will be working part time for the rest of December.

I am putting the final touches on a new web store where I be will featuring workbooks and compassion fatigue training materials as early as January. I am very excited about this project as it will mean that many of you with limited professional development budgets will have the option to purchase training materials for a fraction of the price of bringing a speaker to your agency.

A few community notices:

You may already know that the Canadian blood supply is at an all time low. The Red Cross is calling for all eligible donors to roll up their sleeves before the holidays.

The Salvation Army is asking that you consider making a donation to a food bank program this month. In my community, I noticed that Loblaws and TD bank have food bank donation boxes at the front of their stores. Another way to help out is to contribute to your local mitten/winter coat drive for kids. I was invited to present a keynote this week and everyone brought a food bank donation to the meal. Maybe these are things that you already do?

My mother has always been someone with a strong social conscience: For my 12th birthday, she took me to a large rehabilitation hospital in Montreal to help out at the christmas party. I got to serve turkey dinners alongside prison parolees (who were doing their bit for the community) and was taught how to respectfully and efficiently feed someone who was physically unable to do so themselves. I must say that it was in fact probably the best birthday I had ever had. Certainly the one with the biggest learning curve. I always think about this experience as this time of year rolls around. For my own children's allowance, I stole an idea from a friend and created three jars: Spend, Save and Share. They put a third in each jar and then decide where and how they will distribute the Share portion. Granted, it might be 50 cents or 5 dollars, but it's still a contribution.

Finally, an invitation to reflect on the busy time that December can be for many of us. Are you someone who gets harried and exhausted before the holidays? If so, I would invite you to review the "musts" from the "coulds". In my extended family, we made a decision three years ago to stop giving each other gifts. We still get together and share good food and play games and music, but no more gifts. Everyone agreed and breathed a sigh of relief. (well, not everyone, a few people were disappointed). I still give presents to my children and make something homemade for a few close friends, but that's it. Grandparents asked to be excluded from this deal and be allowed to give the children something which is totally fine. But my December has become a very simple (and cheap) experience indeed.

My friend Robin is a solution-focused coach who works with individuals who want help dealing with life transitions, who feel stuck and want guidance in moving forward in their personal and/or professional lives. She is also a compassion fatigue specialist and enjoys working with helpers who need extra help in figuring out how to juggle the dance of burnout, compassion fatigue and life.

This week, I want to invite you to go read Robin's 21 day challenge to accomplishing a goal. Here is a quote from her first of 21 posts:

21 days to a new you! Wanna play?
by ROBIN on OCTOBER 21, 2008

Scientists agree that real behaviour change takes about 21 days. Do you have a goal that you want to reach, or take a big bite from? I know that many of you want coaching but worry that you can’t afford it right now. Why don’t you play along with me as I set out to break an old habit or form a new one in 21 days? I’ll provide tips, strategies and motivation and you can let me and the others know how you are making out, where you are stumbling and how you stay on track. You can remain anonymous or you can post to the message board and use your journey to inspire others.

I haven’t decided yet when we will get started, so get in touch if you want me to let you know when the 21 day revolution will begin! Send your email to robin@lifeinspired.ca (don’t use the contact page from the website until we get it up and running again).

No goal too big or too small…Come and play."

Robin Cameron

Link: www.lifeinspired.ca

If you would like to hear the show, you can access the podcast as of tonight (http://www.cbc.ca/whitecoat/index.html?copy-podcast) or wait until it airs again on CBC Radio One, on Saturday November 22nd, at 430pm.

The show is only 25 minutes long so it does not explore solutions and strategies but begins to look at the problem of burnout and compassion fatigue among medical professionals. Hopefully it's a start, to generate more discussion and sharing among helping professionals.

This is a workshop organised by Michael Kerman of Leading Edge Seminars. Although I do not know Janina Fisher, the topic might be particularly relevant for helping professionals in gaining a better understanding of how trauma affects not only their clients but also helpers themselves when working with a lot of traumatic material with clients (vicarious trauma).

Led by Janina Fisher, PhD
2-day workshop
Dates: Thursday, December 4 and Friday, December 5, 2008
Time: 9:00 am to 4:30 pm
Location: Metro-Central YMCA
Fee: $309 until Sept. 11; $339 after Sept. 11

In the context of trauma, attachment failure is inevitable and inescapable, leaving a lasting imprint on all future relationships, including the therapeutic one. Instead of experiencing therapy and the therapist as a haven of safety, the traumatized client will be driven by powerful wishes and fears about relationships, while therapeutic work on the trauma will be compromised by the client’s vulnerability to autonomic dysregulation and transference crises.

Increasingly, therapists interested in the treatment of trauma have become aware of the necessity to treat the attachment issues concurrently with the trauma issues. In this workshop, we will address the impact of trauma on attachment behaviour, the effects of sub-optimal attachment experiences on mind and body, how to understand the effects of traumatic attachment on the therapeutic relationship, and how to work with both the somatic and relational legacy of attachment.

Using interventions drawn from the spheres of psychodynamic psychotherapy, neuroscience and attachment research, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (a body-centred talking therapy for the treatment of trauma), this workshop will combine lecture, demonstration, video, and experiential exercises to explore —

* A neurobiologically informed approach to understanding the impact of trauma on attachment behaviour and on transference
* Strategies for overcoming the effects of disorganized attachment on the therapeutic relationship
* Somatic interventions that challenge trauma-related relational patterns
* The role of the therapist as a “neurobiological regulator” of the client’s dysregulated affective and autonomic states

By the end of the seminar, you will be able to —

* Identify trauma-related attachment patterns and styles
* Describe disorganized attachment behaviour in adults and its implications for treatment
* Discuss somatic consequences of avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized attachment styles
* Define criteria for choosing cognitive, psychodynamic, or somatic interventions for attachment issues
* Utilize somatic interventions to address attachment issues in psychotherapy

For more info: www.leadingedgeseminars.org

Both photos from www.enneagraminstitute.com

I am writing this post on my way home from a weekend retreat, compliments of my mom. Last year, she offered to send me to an Enneagram training and particularly recommended the training on the inner critic, also called Psychic Structures. To learn more about the enneagram, visit www.enneagraminstitute.com

This training was offered by Russ Hudson and Don Riso, leading figures in the field of Enneagram Training. It was held at Don Riso’s country retreat in Rhinebeck, New York, about 2 hours north of New York city. The Fall colours were in their full glory, the Barn was a beautiful training site and the food was outstanding (thank you, stretchy yoga pants!).

I appreciated many aspects of this training: the topic was fascinating, the presenters were extremely knowledgeable and there was a mix of participants from all corners of the world with a wide variety of backgrounds and professional training. What I enjoyed most was that I was not there as an expert in anything (except, maybe, my own mistakes in life!). I was not there as a therapist, as a compassion fatigue specialist or as a mother. I was just there, watching, listening, talking to others and also having the opportunity to sit quietly, take a nap in the middle of the day or read. I think that everyone in the room had far more knowledge of the enneagram than me and it was enjoyable to just be.

In fact, it was incredibly restorative. I wouldn't have said that on day one, which ran until 11pm which is far too late for almost anyone and certainly too late for me who likes to be in my pjs by 9pm. But somehow the mix of activities made it feasible.

I also learned to meditate in a way that I have never really been able to, other than when I am running. Hudson and Riso began each teaching portion with a meditation so we all got to meditate briefly 6 times each day. Their meditation method was new to me and made me want to learn more about ways to meditate when back home. A fellow participant directed me to Itunes, where she said you can download free meditation podcasts. It's worth a visit.

Of course, we don't all have a fairy godmother who sends us to retreats and we can’t always travel across the country to attend a retreat (this was the first one I have ever attended), but the key elements of a retreat could be achieved closer to home:

Stepping outside of our daily grind, being fed by someone else, having access to down time, learning new ideas, resting and meditating.

If you have interests and hobbies outside of work, maybe it could be centered around this interest: a weekend retreat at a friend’s cottage with your watercolours, a half day workshop on a craft with a night at the bed and breakfast.

If your best friend is a helper, and her birthday is coming up, maybe you could offer her a weekend retreat of her own (take her kids for a day, offer to house swap so she doesn't stare at her laundry pile) and sign her up for a yoga class.