Thread by @RohanIrvine

The next presentation is from Gary Barber about Compassion Fatigue in design researchers.
#DR19

Compassion — feeling someone's pain, taking action but not needing to walk in someone's shoes

Neuroscience of compassion.

If we're lucky we turn toward an empathic response

If we're not we turn away from the compassion.

Its a rollercoaster, and if you do this day in day out without managing it you can burn out.

Steps that lead to compassion fatigue

If you don't treat compassion fatigue it can lead to depression. So as empathic researchers we need to look after ourselves.

We can counter this with Vicarious Resilience.

The first step is understanding what symptoms might come from exposure to secondary trauma (hearing traumatic stories e.g.)

One of the issues we face is sharing our trauma onto our colleagues through group contagion. It doesn't happen often but it can happen.

One approach is to pretend we're super powered.

Another approach is debriefing with friends and family.

The organisational approach:

Do nothing (boo)

All the way to:

You have counsellors (hats off)

How do you avoid 'Sliming' you family and friends

Medical practitioners, psychologists, journalists, carers, call centre staff etc have built frameworks already to develop our vicarious resilience.

We have to start with balanced self care.

You need reflection, as close to the point of trauma as possible seek professional counselling.

You need mindfulness.

You need self awareness.

The next level above includes

Reframing your world
Boundary management
Trigger avoidance

Boundary management:

Trigger avoidance:

Good ways to avoid triggers after conducting intense research.

We need our organisations to support us. This is how they can do it.

There is no magic fix for build a supportive organisation.

On a personal level you can put time in to build vicarious resilience.

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