by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD
Photo credit Bigstockphoto Arloo
First and foremost, happy Social Work Month! We are each deeply fortunate to be part of our proud and historic profession. Our profession is one that asks a great deal of us and often has been labeled as “an impossible” one. A key reason is the resources necessary for our clients are rarely available to the extent they are needed, and far too often those in positions of power are highly insensitive to their importance for a healthy society,
For these reasons, societal burnout permeates, exacerbating other forms of burnout originating from work stress and those that may also exist in our personal relationships. Signs of overload we experience express themselves physically through exhaustion, as well as illness.
To alleviate this overload, through the years, I’ve researched key ways to provide relief in preserving and protecting strength, leading to more productive and attuned relationships with our clients. One direction of study relates specifically to our Social Work Month theme this year—Compassion and Action—where findings point to the relationship between compassion, empathy, and action. Before my investigation, I saw the concepts of empathy and compassion as one in the same. However, research led to understanding key differences, ones that understanding can help us to preserve energy.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary definitions offered an intriguing beginning to my search. According to the online dictionary entry, compassion implies an active state, whereas empathy is one of being and feeling. As defined, compassion is “a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress, together with a desire to alleviate it.“ Empathy is an “understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and feelings of another.”
Further research pointed to a necessary examination of the differences between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy entails a union with another—one and one is blended, remaining one. Empathy, however, is a disciplined state of being in which there are boundaries that protect us from compassion fatigue, a major cause of burnout. Regardless of how deeply we care, the client and the social worker are separate. This essential appreciation not only serves us well. It protects our clients, who can be assured, “I will not be intruded upon. I am safe, respected, believed in, and can concentrate on my goals.”
Empathy’s partner is compassion, the active motivated use of one’s professional Self—all of one’s education, training, and authentic life experience—to alleviate suffering of another and offer hope and a new direction.
The union of empathy and compassion forms the social work relationship, the key agent for hope and change provided to those we are privileged to work with. Integrating its importance into our professional life leads to compassion satisfaction. This state not only enhances our relationship with our clients; it also offers renewed energy for participation in action leading to change through community and societal advocacy and activism, the “good trouble” that our beloved and dearly missed Representative John Lewis advocated.
Today, the demands before us are greater than in any time we could have imagined. It is vital to protect ourselves through boundaries and other self-care strategies. Before we can offer compassion to our clients, we must find and hold onto it for ourselves.
SaraKay Smullens
SaraKay Smullen, MSW, LCSW, BCD, is the author of the best selling book Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work (Edition 2, NASW Press, 2021), which grew from her researched award winning article in The New Social Worker, “What I Wish I Had Known.” SaraKay has worked with women enduring domestic violence for more than 30 years, which led to her identification of invisible cycles of emotional abuse, always part of sexual and physical violence, but deserving their own codification. In 1995, with the support of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, she initiated the Sabbath of Domestic Peace Coalition, a diverse, multicultural bonding of religious leaders, the domestic violence community, social workers, physicians, attorneys, volunteers, and law enforcement officials who identified clergy as "a missing link" in addressing the complexities of the virulent epidemic of domestic violence, which prayer alone could not solve. The Coalition held trainings for clergy and parishioners throughout Philadelphia and surrounding areas. Its yearly non-denominational prayer service was attended by hundreds. After several years, the SDP Coalition was able to disband as individual faith communities and houses of worship incorporated its mission.