Compassion fatigue is a unique mental health problem of helping groups, which will not only affect the professional status and helping effect of psychological counselors, but also affect the psychological counselors' personal mental health,and even all aspects of life. This study investigated the performance and mechanism of psychological counselors in three dimensions from the perspectives of psychological capital,coping style and compassion fatigue,and explored effective ways and paths to cope with professional compassion fatigue. Two studies were included: Study 1 investigated the current situation of psychological capital,coping style and compassion fatigue of psychological counselors; The second study investigated the mediating effect of coping styles of psychological counselors on the effect of psychological capital on compassion fatigue.
The Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ),Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ),and Compassion Fatigue Scale for Psychological Counselors were used in this study. An online survey was conducted by distributing questionnaires through wechat. A total of 292 questionnaires were distributed and 251 valid questionnaires were obtained. The subjects were all practitioners engaged in psychological counseling.
Status of Study 1 The results show that:
Key groups of compassion fatigue: male, childless, full-time psychological counselors, psychiatrists and national psychotherapists who have worked in for-profit psychological service institutions or hospitals for 3 to 5 years (including 5 years) are more likely to have compassion fatigue and need to be paid attention to as key groups.
U-shaped curve of working years: Psychological consultants' psychological capital, coping style and positive coping style show U-shaped distribution with the increase of working years,while negative coping style and compassion fatigue level show inverted U-shaped distribution with the increase of working years. The peak value or the trough value were in the group of 3}5 years (including 5 years).
The importance of receiving supervision: Receiving supervision can improve psychological capital,coping style and relieve compassion fatigue for counselors at all stages of practice. Compared with part-time psychological counselors,full-time
psychological counselors need more supervision.
The mechanism of action in Study 2 showed thatahere is a positive correlation between psychological capital and coping style,while Psychological capital and coping style were negatively correlated with compassion fatigue. In other words, psychological counselors can improve psychological capital,optimize coping style and reduce compassion fatigue. Coping style plays a partial mediating role in the influence of psychological capital on compassion fatigue,in which the mediating role of negative coping style does not exist,but positive coping style plays a partial mediating role. That is,psychological counselors can resist the positive effects of compassion fatigue by improving positive coping styles.
The psychological capital, coping style and compassion fatigue of psychological counselors were significantly affected by demographic factors, and receiving supervision was beneficial for psychological counselors to relieve compassion fatigue; Improving psychological capital and positive coping styles can alleviate compassion fatigue.
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