The big idea: is compassion fatigue real?

Can we really maintain our levels of empathy in the face of an increasingly brutal news cycle?

If you believe some commentators, we're in the midst of a compassion crisis, with a particularly brutal daily news cycle taking itstoll on our reserves of sympathy. The moresuffering we see, the less we care, as wementally switch off from others' pain. Theresult may even be that we struggle to feel as muchconcern for people close at hand when they cometo us for support; we end up feeling numb to any expression of emotion.

The whole world is at risk for compassion fatigue,'"Time magazine declared recently. And while occasionally disengaging might seem like a sensible form of self-protection, the prospect of losing any senseof concern for others over the longer term would be a disaster. But is this an inevitable consequence of paying attention to the realities of the world around us? Are there ways to avoid it?