Being empathetic with patients is important for their recovery but it has its limits.

In this podcast, you will learn:

- How empathy fatigue can lead to burnout. 

- How to recognize coping behavior strategies employed by clinicians to protect from patients’ suffering that become habits and contribute to exhaustion.

- How to name the core elements of the process of reinforcement learning in habit loops. 

- To identify new strategies to step out of unhelpful habit loops.

Empathy is all about feeling our patients' pain in order to help them heal. Pain is a signal for danger and our natural response is to do something to get away from or protect ourselves from it. We develop different protection and coping strategies that become habits via the cue behavior result process of reinforcement learning. Common habit loops include:

1. Over-empathizing loop:  your patient is feeling anxious, frustrated, angry, hopeless. You empathize. You feel these feelings.
2. Self-protection loop: You armor up or distance yourself so that you don’t get burned.
3. Fix it loop:  You jump into action, you have that strong urge to do something, anything.
4. Take it home loop:  You worry, you can’t stop thinking about your patient or your decisions. 
5. Anger loop: You get frustrated or angry and lash out at your patient, staff, or family.

Recognizing the loop is the first step in stepping out of it.

The home practice of module 1 is recognizing when you are in a habit loop and in which one you are and mapping its 3 elements: cue (what activated your behavior), behavior and reward (the result of your behavior). You can use the habit mapper to help you map these loops out.


Click here to download the habit mapper: https://drjud.com/mapmyhabit-clinicians/

To ask questions or suggest future topics, please comment below or connect with me on Twitter @judbrewer

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Build your body awareness using mindfulness practices, like those in the free "Breathe by Dr. Jud" app, available on both Apple and Android devices.

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