Learning Objective #1: Understand the concept of compassion fatigue and how it may emerge as a 'natural' consequence of caring for clients experiencing trauma, pain and suffering

Learning Objective #2: Begin to articulate how the complexities of nurse-client relationship may leave the nurse vulnerable to developing compassion fatigue

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Working in emotionally charged environments such as intensive care, emergency, mental health (including crisis), and oncology units can be expected to carry considerable stress for staff. Staff is repeatedly exposed to patient experiences of trauma, suffering, life-threatening illness and/or therapies that may prove ineffective. Providing care to individuals whose stories are ones of fear, pain and suffering carries a cost. Nurses who have an enormous capacity for empathy are most vulnerable themselves to experiencing health problems such as compassion fatigue. The following discussion will draw on the ethical dialectic of Sally Gadow (with its triad of levels: subjective immersion (ethical immediacy), objective detachment (ethical universalism), and inter-subjective engagement (relational narrative) seeking to position this framework as a possible explanation for the emergence of a phenomenon associated with the ‘natural' consequences of caring.