Occupational Stress Injury (OSI)(Compassion Stress Injury, CSI) & Educators

Individuals enter into helping professions like health care, social work, law enforcement or education with a desire to assist people with their lives. Teachers, at all levels of the educational system, from kindergarten to post-secondary institutions, are an example of this population. Individuals enter into these professions with their psyche full of emotional empathy.

The human psyche is composed of the mind, soul, and spirit and is the central thought, feelings, motivation, consciously or unconsciously directing the body’s reaction to its social and physical environment. But, over time, with situations and circumstances, this full cup of emotional empathy begins to drain, resulting in compassion fatigue and eventual burnout of the psyche if there is no intervention. Burnout occurs when the vessel has been depleted leaving the empathic person lost, abandoned, depressed and even suicidal, seeking a means to relieve the stress. The purpose of my study is to examine Compassion Stress Injury (CSI) in teachers at all levels of the educational spectrum including treatment or prevention options.