Compassion fatigue tends to arise from which underlying process?

• A. A feeling of over-competence.
• B. Cumulative stress from the desire to help suffering clients.
• C. Lack of compassion.
• D. Excessive detachment unrelated to patient care.

Answer: (B)

Compassion fatigue comes from the cumulative stress of continually trying to help people who are suffering. When a caregiver repeatedly bears witness to trauma and pain, the emotional resources used for empathic engagement get depleted over time, leading to fatigue, numbness, and a reduced capacity to care. This is about ongoing exposure and the burden of trying to “fix” or support others, not a sudden or single-slip in mood. The other ideas don’t fit because over-competence isn’t a fatigue trigger, lack of compassion isn’t the mechanism at work, and detachment that isn’t tied to patient care wouldn’t reflect the sustained empathic strain that produces compassion fatigue.