This is Episode 2 in my Empathy Series. In this conversation, I explore what happens when empathy doesn’t just drain us emotionally, but actually hurts the brain and body.

We’ll look at what neuroscience reveals about empathic distress: the way empathy lights up pain circuits, activates the stress response, and, when left unchanneled, leads to burnout and exhaustion. I unpack why the phrase “compassion fatigue” is misleading, and how what many in counseling, medicine, and caregiving actually experience is empathic distress fatigue.

I also examine how our fields too often wear this exhaustion as a badge of honor, and the severe consequences of staying stuck in empathy-only modes, including dissociation and even group-level hysteria.

Most importantly, this episode offers a way forward: moving from empathy to sympathy, and ultimately into compassion—the place where resilience and real change live.

#untangledmindllc #empathy #trauma #anxiety #compassionfatigue