Overcoming Compassion Fatigue: Creative Self-Care Strategies
$39.00
Introductory
Online
Course Abstract
Overcoming Compassion Fatigue: Creative Self-Care Strategies is a 3-hour online continuing education (CE) course that examines how to identify and treat compassion fatigue.
Loss is a recurring theme in our lives, often disguised as change, rejection, or tragedy. A caregiver is often affected directly by loss when overly engaged and immersed in the consistent demands of tending to those in distress. Some of the losses might include sleep, free time, independence, and social connections. These losses may be considered a secondary loss or distress because of a primary loss. The term and concept of compassion fatigue grew from this secondary loss experience (or more aptly, secondary trauma) that we as caregivers or caring professionals can experience as part of our professional or personal lives.
In this course, we will begin with an overview of what compassion fatigue is along with historical context. We will then learn who is the most vulnerable to the effects of compassion fatigue, as well as the signs, symptoms, and risk factors to watch out for. Diagnostic tools, such as the Life Stress Test and Professional Quality of Life Measure are included. A section on preventing compassion fatigue reviews the ABC’s of prevention, compassion satisfaction, the role of empathy, and the importance of self-compassion.
The final section will provide ten evidence-based creative self-care strategies, proven effective in treating compassion fatigue and stress, as well as building emotional resilience when faced with change and loss. These strategies will be presented to you through description, application, research, and real-life stories illustrating how each technique may be applied to your own life or to those you work with and support. Each of the strategy examples will be followed by optional self-care exercise prompts to “Try It” for further enrichment. These prompts provide an opportunity to explore, in your own authentic way, various methods to alleviate compassion fatigue. Short videos are included throughout to break up the text and provide an additional perspective.
SLPs/OTs/RDNs: This course is undergoing approval with ASHA/AOTA/CDR.
Course #31-67 | 2026 | 20 Posttest Questions | Mobile-Friendly
Learning Objectives
- Differentiate between compassion fatigue and burnout
- List three emotional, physical, and behavioral symptoms of compassion fatigue
- Describe who is at risk of developing compassion fatigue and explain the role of empathy
- Identify two diagnostic tools used to recognize symptoms of compassion fatigue
- Explain the ABC’s of preventing compassion fatigue and the role of self-compassion
- Illustrate ten self-care strategies for overcoming compassion fatigue
Course Directions
This course is text-based (reading), and the CE test is open-book (you can print the test to mark your answers on it while reading the course materials). Successful completion of this course involves passing an online test (80% required, three chances to take) and we ask that you also complete a brief course evaluation. Contact us with any questions – we are here to help!
About the Author(s)
CE Information
Counseling
Professional Development Resources (PDR) has been approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 5590. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. PDR is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. Professional Development Resources is also approved by the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage & Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling; the Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board for Professional Counselors; the Mississippi State Board of Examiners for Licensed Professional Counselors; the New Hampshire Board of Mental Health Practice; the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors (#MHC-0135 - Note: New York counselors will receive 3 continuing education credits for completing this self-study course); the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Family Therapist Board; the South Carolina Board of Professional Counselors and Marriage & Family Therapists (#193); the Tennessee Board for Licensed Professional Counselors, Licensed Marital and Family Therapists, and Licensed Clinical Pastoral Therapists; the Texas State Board of Examiners of Professional Counselors; the West Virginia Board of Examiners in Counseling; and is CE Broker compliant (#50-1635 – completions are reported within 24 hours).
Marriage and Family Therapy
Professional Development Resources is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Professional Development Resources maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Professional Development Resources is also approved by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC ACEP #5590); the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB #1046, ACE Program); the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage & Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling; the Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board for Marriage & Family Therapy; the New Hampshire Board of Mental Health Practice; the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists (#MFT-0100 - Note: New York MFTs will receive 3 continuing education credit(s) for completing this self-study course); the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Family Therapist Board; the South Carolina Board of Examiners for Licensure of Professional Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists, Addiction Counselors, and Psycho-Educational Specialists (#193); the Tennessee Board for Licensed Professional Counselors, Licensed Marital and Family Therapists, and Licensed Clinical Pastoral Therapists; the Texas State Board of Examiners of Marriage and Family Therapists (#114); and is CE Broker compliant (#50-1635 – completions are reported within 24 hours).
Psychology
Professional Development Resources, Inc. is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Professional Development Resources maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Professional Development Resources is also approved by the Arizona Board of Psychologist Examiners; the Florida Board of Psychology; the Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board – Psychology; the Michigan Board of Psychology; the New Hampshire Board of Psychologists; the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of self-study continuing education for licensed psychologists (#PSY-0145); the North Carolina Psychology Board; the North Dakota State Board of Psychologist Examiners; the South Carolina Board of Examiners in Psychology; the Tennessee Board of Examiners of Psychology; the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists; the Wyoming Board of Psychology; and is CE Broker compliant (#50-1635 – completions are reported within 24 hours).
School Psychology
Professional Development Resources is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Professional Development Resources maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Professional Development Resources is also approved by the Arizona Board of Psychologist Examiners; the Florida Board of Psychology and Office of School Psychology; the Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board for Psychology; the Michigan Board of Psychology; the New Hampshire Board of Psychologists; the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of self-study continuing education for licensed psychologists (#PSY-0145); the North Carolina Psychology Board; the North Dakota State Board of Psychologist Examiners; the South Carolina Board of Examiners in Psychology; the Tennessee Board of Examiners of Psychology; the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists; the Wyoming Board of Psychology; and is CE Broker compliant (#50-1635 – completions are reported within 24 hours).
Social Work
Professional Development Resources, #1046, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 6/12/2025 - 6/12/2028. Social workers completing this course receive 3 clinical continuing education credits. ACE format: Reading-based asynchronous distance learning.
Professional Development Resources is also approved by the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling; the Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board for Social Workers; the Michigan Board of Social Work; the New Hampshire Board of Mental Health Practice; the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers (#SW-0664 - Note: New York social workers will receive 3 continuing education credit(s) for completing this self-study course); the North Dakota Board of Social Work Examiners; the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Family Therapist Board; the South Carolina Board of Social Work Examiners; the Tennessee Board of Social Workers; the Texas State Board of Social Worker Examiners (#5678); the West Virginia Board of Social Work; and is CE Broker compliant (#50-1635 – completions are reported within 24 hours).
Teaching
Professional Development Resources is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Professional Development Resources maintains responsibility for all programs and content. Professional Development Resources is also approved by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC ACEP #5590); the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB #1046, ACE Program); the Continuing Education Board of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA #AAUM); the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA #3159); the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR Prior Approval Program); and is CE Broker compliant (#50-1635 – completions are reported within 24 hours).
Customer Testimonials
It was an awesome CEU, much needed for all healthcare professionals. Thank you.
I truly enjoyed and valued this course. Here I thought (starting out) that reviewing self-care strategies was a stressless and easier course to gather some CEUs but found that proved secondary to the rich and thorough coverage of this most important aspect of my on-going training and practice. After 40+ years as a psychologist, that is my thank you and tribute to your efforts here.
Excellent course. We need more positive courses like this one.
This presentation is so significant for everyone because we all need to learn how to take care of ourselves and boost our productivity in both our personal and professional lives.
This course encompasses many professions. With my work and background in therapeutic massage, life coaching, dance, and occupational therapy, this course is very pertinent. Although it talks about many methods and ideas I've already known and used, there are many resources, assessment tools, etc. that I would like to go back and look at in more detail. I would highly recommend this course. It weaves information on meditation, experiencing nature to enhance relaxation, stress reduction, social interaction, and music & movement activities into a comprehensive course dealing with compassion fatigue, which many healthcare professionals have dealt with. Thank you to the authors for such a broad and interesting course!
More Testimonials
I am THRILLED with this material. It has helped me genuinely recognize my own compassion fatigue. I cannot believe how the definitions nailed my experiences and I am SO grateful for the excellent breadth of information. It was really inclusive and I will be sharing it with patients who practice in the field as well as colleagues. Thank you for this particular class.
Interesting and informative study. Enjoyed this one very much.
This unit was incredibly enjoyable and presented in a perfectly coherent manner. The case examples made it come to life. It will be useful on an everyday basis and broadly applicable!
A very much needed course for all of us mental health professionals! Thank you!
Loved the distinction between gratitude and optimism.
This was not a lot of new information, but I need to be reminded to actively engage in my own self-care. The comment about "extending" yourself really resonated; it takes a lot of energy to reach out to patients every day. That alone is tiring and being an active, empathic listener is a skill, and regular self-care is a must.
Loved this course! Very helpful and learned a lot!
This course was very applicable to my work setting community health/mental health. Ideas from this course can be applied whether it is a challenge via a patient, staff, or even the situation (ie: covid and the contention associated with it), not only as a health concern).
Thanks for all the tips and clear ways to implement the strategies. The websites are helpful too.
Great course! I love all of the useful ideas for how to incorporate daily strategies for overcoming compassion fatigue. Thank you!
Thank you to the authors for going the extra mile in giving applicable links & references to help with immediate initiation of these ideas.
This was the best self-care training that I have taken. I learned a great deal and will be able to apply the strategies to my personal life and the clients that I serve.
It was a wonderful course and relevant to my current work situation, as the materials and teachings cross over into my personal life. So many reminders of ways to help clients and my own self-care, especially each of us continuing to work and live through the effects of Covid. I will recommend this course to any who will hear. My compliments to the authors: Catherine Tyink, and Christine Kortbein.
Thank you for a thorough review and lists of resources for additional information!
This is one of the best continuing education courses I have done through PDR! Loved it!
Good course. I learned how to deal with my own compassion fatigue.
I like how the self care techniques are listed with web sites and it appears easy to implement these, given the author's descriptions of them. Very helpful to us all, especially with Covid in our environment.
I enjoyed learning techniques for self care, as I often struggle with leaving clients who are having difficulties at work, etc.
This was one of my favorite CE courses. The topic of self care is so important and this program provided many great and diverse strategies for facilitating self care, personally and professionally. Thank you.
Very practical and well-organised course which included a great list of resources for future use. Thank you for creating such a fine course.
This was a wonderful course! It's so useful for providers - the strategies provided were both practical and creative.
Quite a wonderful course. I will be incorporating the material into my practice. I work with a number of students who struggle with stress and use a number of the techniques, but now have 4 more to help them combat stress. I already incorporate a number of stress relievers. Thank you!
As a Licensed Psychologist, with a medical background (RN), working with front-line providers (physicians, nurses, paramedics, and other clinic/hospital workers) struggling with Compassion fatigue, anxiety, depression & PTSD, I appreciated this timely and informative course. Therapists are also front-line workers prone to compassion fatigue, certainly a secondary trauma in these challenging times. This course was helpful in identifying how to keep ourselves healthy. Thank you!
I think courses on compassion fatigue should be required education for healthcare professionals. In addition to ethics, domestic violence, and medical errors, I think it is a course that professionals would benefit from reading over and over again. Though all the information is not new to me, the repetition of the information is helpful as it is reminder that it is easy to miss how much a job in a helping profession can impact a professional's basic life structure, health, etc. I think, too often, healthcare professionals learn about or pay attention to compassion fatigue when they are in crisis themselves or are, at the very least, overwhelmed. I was lucky enough to be introduced to the concept very early in my education during graduate school. And I have been wise enough to keep that nugget in mind throughout my career. Knowing the importance of and not being afraid to engage in self-care has been a real boon in my life. I wish the same for other healthcare professionals.
Very engaging with the scenarios and the "try it" examples. Helped to put what you were learning into practice.
This course was a true gem. It was well crafted and exceeded my already high expectations. Good presentation of theory, hands on activities, and a wide range of resources. Anecdotal accounts enhanced the learning process, rather than feeling like filler. Bravo, and thank you to the authors for a job well done!
I really appreciated this course and would highly recommend it to anyone feeling compassion fatigue or working with others who do. Thank you!
Today I recognized that a client was experiencing compassion fatigue. When I brought this up and explained it to her, she felt heard and understood and agreed to try some things to address it. Had I not been reading the course materials before speaking with her I might have conceptualized her experience differently and missed what was most important for her. Thank you!
As always, a fantastic course. I feel that I have better tools to help both myself, and my clients with self-care and weathering the storm of compassion fatigue. This course provides a wide area of realistic and evidence based self-care practices in great detail.
This course was well organized. It provided the reader with ten practical strategies to manage compassion fatigue. Examples and resources on each strategy were easily accessible within the course. I have already downloaded several of the recommendations from the course and plan to pursue them.
Great course! Loved the progression from the self-tests to the recommended strategies, examples and resources. Thanks for letting me take the course. Really needed it working in health care in these Covid times!
This course was really well written and organized logically with many interesting stories and data to back up the importance of each strategy. I think in our busy world with such great reliance on phones/computers/social media these strategies are so important. While I have heard many of them before, the study really motivated me to try some of the strategies outlined in the study and I am grateful for the many links and apps mentioned in the document to help me begin my own self-care journey. I am also going to share the information with family members who could definitely benefit from focusing on their own self-care.
This was a wonderful course that really made me think about my own stress levels and forms of compassion fatigue. It provided great information on a variety of ways to manage/cope with compassion fatigue that were easy to implement. I especially liked the true stories included with each as a teaching tool and real life examples.
Thank you for this course! Loved it! easy to read and so interesting! Really enjoyed the section on art therapy ... just so helpful!
Great course. Thank you for reminding us that we also need the self-care that we recommend to clients!
This was a wonderful course that has been long overdue. Thank you so much for offering this course on compassion fatigue. More courses like this should be offered for health care professionals.
This was one of the most enjoyable modules I have completed. Good research-based information was presented in a user-friendly manner.
The use of examples and YouTube links worked very well for this article, giving useful examples of humor and self-care as well as providing a break from the reading material itself.
This is a great course! I learned a lot that will help me combat compassion fatigue as I care for my elderly mom. Great information and strategies that will be easy to implement.
A good course. It should be mandatory reading for both new and older psychologists (and others) in private practice.
Wow! So much more important information than any course I've seen before. Love the many wonderful tools.
This course should be mandatory for all graduates in the healthcare field. Thank you.
This course had so much more than the basic information on compassion fatigue. I am so thankful to have found it. It's full of new things to understand and wonderful tools.
This course had good factual information, but more importantly, had a ton of real-life strategies for dealing with compassion fatigue which could be put to use immediately.
This was one of my favorite CE courses. The topic of self care is so important and this program provided so many great and diverse strategies for facilitating self care, personally and professionally. Thank you.
This was a wonderful course! It's so useful as providers - the strategies provided were both practical and creative.
Quite a wonderful course. I will be incorporating the material into my practice. I work with a number of students who struggle with stress and use a number of the techniques, but I now have 4 more to help them combat stress. I already incorporate a number of stress relievers. Thank you!
Excellent presentation that helped me to foresee improvement in my own self-care as an at home, 24/7 family caregiver. Thank you!
Self-care and self-awareness in this topic was ironically not a CEU I would have thought of; it was enlightening to find this resources on the PDR website. The information was helpful and empowering. Thank you!
I REALLY enjoyed this course. It was clearly written, well organized, useful. It seemed comprehensive yet not complex. The test also did not test for "triviality" but organized my synthesis of the material so was useful learning as well. I will highly recommend.
Excellent training on common stressors all social workers face, and how to alleviate and prevent them through evidence-based self-care strategies.
Another great look at emotional health, and so thorough. I also like the choice of illustrations and photos in this course as well as many of the others. Thank you!
This course needs to be "mandatory to all!" It is so relevant to anyone & everyone. Very insightful and helpful for ALL walks of life. This should be "bundled up with " Aging: Challenges for Clinicians." VERY USEFUL indeed! Well done - Thank you!!!
Very helpful course, maybe especially as a reminder for those of us who have been working in a helping profession for some time.
Compassion fatigue is an occupational hazard in healthcare workers, especially since Covid. Great suggestions, examples, and resources were presented.
