ABSTRACT
Compassion fatigue more correctly called empathy fatigue and burnout are related and widespread phenomena in the helping professions. A large American study showed that more than half of medical students met the criteria for burn-out, which was associated with more unprofessional conduct and fewer altruistic professional values. The several mindfulness-based programmes that teach health care professionals self-awareness and self-care skills have been evaluated with promising results, both in groups of primary care physicians and medical students. The chapter presents a specific form of practice, an Insight Dialogue, described by Gregory Kramer. He and his team developed a manual for practising meditation in dialogue from a Buddhist perspective, which can be of benefit to psychotherapists as well. Susan Gillis Chapman and Rosamund Oliver developed secular teaching programmes on interpersonal practice of mindfulness and compassion, each from different Tibetan practice traditions, which are increasingly offered to health care professionals to deepen their communication skills.
