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Healing the Healers: The Role of Contemplative Practice in Mitigating Counselor Burnout and Empathy Fatigue

Clarissa Cigrand, Jordan T. Quaglia, Sean Lawlor, Claire Bailey

Journal of Mental Health Counseling July 1, 2025 DOI: 10.17744/mehc.47.3.04 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Qualitative study Peer reviewed
Sample size 11
Population Mental health counselors with extensive contemplative practice experience
Interventions Mindfulness meditation movement-based practices
Topics Meditation
Key findings The authors report that contemplative practices enhanced self-attunement, self-compassionate inquiry, transcendent meaning and purpose, therapeutic boundaries, compassion, disengagement from client influence after sessions, and personal agency, and alleviated symptoms of empathy fatigue and burnout. They conclude these practices may support flexible, adaptive responses that mitigate or prevent empathy fatigue and burnout.

Abstract

Abstract Empathy fatigue and burnout are at an all-time high within the mental health professions, and there remains a need to understand protective factors that can address these conditions. The current qualitative study investigated how contemplative practice, such as mindfulness meditation and movement-based practices, can support the remediation of empathy fatigue and burnout. Eleven mental health counselors with extensive contemplative practice experience were interviewed, and data were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Findings revealed that contemplative practice enhanced self-attunement and self-compassionate inquiry, alleviated the symptomology of empathy fatigue and burnout, enhanced transcendent meaning and purpose, promoted therapeutic boundaries, deepened the cultivation of compassion, supported disengagement of client influence after session, and enhanced a sense of personal agency in one's workplace. From this study, we demonstrate that contemplative practices can support a wide variety of flexible and adaptive responses that may mitigate empathy fatigue and burnout or prevent them altogether.

Comparable studies

Other qualitative studies on meditation, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists Western Buddhist meditation practitioners and experts in Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan... 2017 Qualitative study with mixed-methods
The Effects of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction on Nurse Stress and Burnout Nurses in a hospital system 2004 Implementation study with mixed methods
An exploratory mixed methods study of the acceptability and effectiveness of mindfulness -based cognitive therapy for patients with active depression and anxiety in primary care Primary care patients with recurrent depression or recurrent depression and anxiety 2006 Exploratory mixed methods study n = 13
A qualitative study of mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy for depression Participants in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in a mental-health context 2001 Qualitative study n = 7
Effortless awareness: using real time neurofeedback to investigate correlates of posterior cingulate cortex activity in meditators' self-report Meditators 2013 Qualitative study using grounded theory methodology

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Meditation Philosophy of mind