Why we need to manage empathy to avoid burnout
Empathy leads us to show concern and compassion, but ‘too much empathy’ can leave us burnt out
A 33-year-old client asked me if “too much empathy" is a bad thing. “I feel empathy is one of my biggest strengths but also a weakness. I’m wondering if it tires me out sometimes and then all I want to do is hide," she said.
This is a sentiment I often hear in therapy sessions, particularly from doctors, palliative care workers, journalists, social workers, caregivers, therapists, teachers, young mothers and from people across age groups for whom empathy is a top trait.
What the client is referring to and experiencing is “empathic distress". Researchers Tania Singer and Olga Klimecki in a 2014 paper titled Empathy and Compassion mentioned how empathy can take the form of fatigue and lead to the individual wanting to safeguard themselves from the overwhelming negative feelings they experience.
We need to remember that empathy is an essential quality and yet needs to be managed so that one isn’t over identifying. When not managed well, empathy can feel like a blind spot that eats into our well-being and capacity to be skilfully present for others.
At the heart of it lies the human capacity to be attuned to what others are experiencing, whether it’s joy, sadness, or pain, and approach it as if we are stepping into their shoes.
That’s what makes it beautiful—it opens a window for connection and allows us to understand others’ lives. It is a foundational trait necessary to build humane societies and the basis for altruism. A pre-requisite for empathy is remembering the “as if" quality—understanding someone’s experience but being aware that it is not your own. If we forget that, we end up getting emotionally entangled, lose our objectivity, equanimity and even begin to physically and emotionally feel the pain of others. This can overwhelm us and come in the way of how we offer help to others.
My client said listening to her friend’s suffering evokes so much pain that her face goes pale, she feels terribly sad and then guilty because she feels she has made it about herself. When people find themselves experiencing this, it can evoke exhaustion, burnout and stress.
Awareness about this is a good starting point. It allows us space to pause and re-imagine how we can be more present for others and ourselves. The idea is to not do away with what empathy evokes, but to ask ourselves how we rein in the empathic distress.
Our capacity for compassion can provide an antidote. It also includes feelings of warmth, care and a sentiment of wanting to help. At its heart lies the recognition of universal suffering, yet with an awareness that one is watching, not owning, the pain of others. This understanding creates a healthy space where one can respond with attention, curiosity, presence, warmth, kindness while knowing that we may not be able to take their pain away.
Over the years, recognising the difference between empathic distress and compassion has helped me deepen my ability for skillful compassion. Paying attention to feedback that the body is giving, meditation, engaging in techniques for mood regulation, spending time in nature and being deliberate about what kind of help to offer so that its soothing but also enables people to take care of themselves has helped. Most importantly, staying honest about what my capacity for compassion is at any given time has helped.
The art of developing compassionate concern is what we all can cultivate as we continue being gentle with ourselves.
Sonali Gupta is a Mumbai-based psychotherapist. She is the author of You Will be Alright: A Guide to Navigating Grief and has a YouTube channel, Mental Health with Sonali.
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