The Rewards of Caring: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Experiences of Compassion Satisfaction in Psychologists Working with Justice-Involved Youth

• Author / Creator

  Haldane, Chayse Marie

• Psychologists who work with justice-involved youth face numerous workplace stressors, which can negatively impact the psychologists’ well-being and the care they provide to their clients. Identified as a potential protective factor against adverse reactions to helping work, compassion satisfaction is the pleasure gained from helping others in the course of one’s work. Although there is growing evidence of the positive effects of compassion satisfaction, the majority of research on compassion satisfaction is quantitative and does not adequately represent helpers across all areas of helping. In particular, there has been a lack of research on psychologists’ experiences of compassion satisfaction in counselling justice-involved youth. Such research may contribute to psychologists’ well-being and success in this challenging area of practice.
  The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of compassion satisfaction from the perspectives of psychologists counselling youth in the justice system. With this purpose in mind, I used interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) methods (Smith et al., 2022) and conducted in-depth interviews with five registered psychologists from across Western Canada. In keeping with the idiographic emphasis of IPA studies, I analyzed each individual case first and wrote a vignette that described the unique context and ideographic themes of each participant. Next, I completed a cross-case analysis, which produced six group experiential themes: relationship building and client engagement; witnessing client success; self-efficacy in promoting client change; sense of meaning and purpose; interconnectedness between personal and professional lives; and impact of workplace factors. Based on the findings from this study, compassion satisfaction may play an important role in helping psychologists working in the youth justice system to persist in their work and maintain their mental wellness, despite the many challenges they face. Implications for ways to support psychologists working in this area are discussed, in addition to a discussion of the present study’s limitations and directions for future research.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • justice-involved youth
  • compassion satisfaction
  • psychologists

• Graduation date

  Fall 2024

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-fex2-kr58

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Library with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.