As helping professionals, music therapists show compassion to their clients but may lack necessary self-care skills to prevent burnout and promote well-being. Due to a lack of research in this area, this study investigated reported levels of compassion for others, self-compassion, burnout, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion satisfaction among music therapists in relation to age, gender, and years of professional experience. A survey of 575 board certified music therapists in the USA revealed higher levels of compassion for others than self-compassion, low levels of burnout and secondary traumatic stress, and high levels of compassion satisfaction. Burnout strongly negatively correlated with both self-compassion and compassion satisfaction and strongly positively correlated with secondary traumatic stress. A MANCOVA revealed significant differences in compassion for others and compassion satisfaction based on gender, with female participants reporting significantly higher scores for both constructs. Additionally, there was a trend related to self-compassion and compassion levels increasing over time. There were strong associations between compassion and self-compassion with burnout and secondary traumatic stress; therefore, it would benefit music therapists to cultivate compassion practices to lower burnout risk.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uky.edu/oai:uknowledge.uky.edu:music_etds-1095 |
Date | 01 January 2017 |
Creators | Rushing, Jamie E. |
Publisher | UKnowledge |
Source Sets | University of Kentucky |
Detected Language | English |
Type | text |
Format | application/pdf |
Source | Theses and Dissertations--Music |
Page generated in 0.0016 seconds