Understanding the impact of expertise on compassion fatigue in counseling via core self-evaluation and resilience

Abstract

Compassion fatigue is a prevalent challenge experienced by helping professionals, influencing both their personal well-being and the quality of services they deliver. While the beneficial impact of expertise in counseling on alleviating compassion fatigue has been established, limited research has investigated this association specifically among mental health counselors within the cultural context of China. Additionally, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This study examined whether expertise in counseling can reduce compassion fatigue and whether this relationship is mediated by core self-evaluation and resilience. A cross-sectional survey of 109 mental health counselors revealed that expertise negatively predicted compassion fatigue both directly and indirectly through enhanced core self-evaluation. However, resilience only exhibited a negative correlation with compassion fatigue and a positive correlation with core self-evaluation, its mediating effect between expertise and compassion fatigue was not supported. This study highlights the crucial role of expertise and core self-evaluation as mediating factors in alleviating compassion fatigue.