Readying for Compassion

“There is always pain in the room.” This comment from Peter Frost, a compassion scholar, has never rung more true than it does teaching in today’s classrooms. In addition to the suffering brought on by the various events that we all might experience (e.g., loss of a loved one, financial strain, relationship challenges, etc.), college students often experience challenges related to academic pressure, being away from home, food insecurity, and making important career decisions. Indeed, there is undeniable and concerning evidence of a mental health crisis among these young adults, including high rates of loneliness, stress, and diagnosed conditions like anxiety and depression (Abrams, 2022; Wood, 2024). Given that compassion is the heart’s response to another’s suffering (Kornfield, 1993), faculty are often on the front lines: feeling compassion for students, wanting to help, and often unsure how. So, how can faculty answer the call for compassion from their students?

When we think of being compassionate to others who are suffering, we often think about actions – things we can do to help someone in pain. Typical prescriptions include: be present, listen well, and be empathic (Worline & Dutton, 2017). Research tells us that these actions are often helpful in calming the sufferer, alleviating suffering, and reducing stress (Trzeciak & Mazzarelli, 2019). They often also leave the potential compassion provider and even third parties better off (Dutton, Workman & Hardin, 2014). Additionally, there is a critical step that precedes these actions and often goes unrecognized, and that is how we can prepare ourselves to be compassionate. In other words, what can we do before we directly encounter another’s suffering that might even enhance the competence and impact of our compassion?

We draw on a study we completed about people who regularly engage in compassion as part of their work to identify how we might prepare for compassion as faculty. This study uncovered critical ways that people might ready themselves to encounter others’ suffering. Specifically, we studied volunteer professional photographers who became members of an inspiring non-profit called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (NILMDTS).

NILMDTS offers the gift of healing, hope and honor to parents experiencing the death of a baby through the overwhelming power of remembrance portraits. Professional-level photographers volunteer their time to conduct an intimate portrait session, capturing the only moments parents spend with their babies. Parents are gifted with delicately retouched black and white digital portraits free of charge. (excerpt from their web page)

From our interviews with NILMDTS photographers and archival analyses, we identified several “readying approaches” that these individuals used to do anticipatory resourcing that not only facilitated their compassion but also helped them persist in being compassionate even when depleted. Each of these readying approaches offers insights into how faculty might ready themselves for the suffering of students.

Task Readying

Task readying involves deliberately acquiring the job-related skills and knowledge to enable compassion both directly by improving one’s ability to do tasks with compassionate ends or indirectly by freeing up time and capacity to notice and respond to suffering. For instance, by mastering the technical aspects of taking good photographs (e.g., learning how to position parents and a child), the bereavement photographers were better able to take beautiful images that could be healing for families. The photographers also noted that this job-specific knowledge and skill helped them do their work more efficiently and automatically, so they could be more attentive and responsive to the grieving parents. Furthermore, they were able to work more quickly so as to be unobtrusive and minimize the chances that they might cause additional stress for families.

In universities, faculty may engage in professional development to acquire teaching-related skills and knowledge that could be helpful in being compassionate to students. For example, they might receive training in being present, listening, and conveying empathy. They also might learn how to foster inclusion or how to create a psychologically safe classroom environment to help students feel less anxious about making comments, asking questions, or seeking help. In addition, faculty could improve their efficiency and effectiveness in tasks like preparing for class or grading so that there is more capacity to notice and be receptive to signs or direct disclosures about students’ suffering.

Material Readying

A second form of compassion readying focuses on having the necessary supplies and physical materials at hand to engage in compassion. Some material supplies help give faculty (or anyone) more capacity to be present and respond to the suffering of others. For the photographers, material readying involved having the necessary photo equipment to perform the photo shoot, but also having the baby supplies to ensure the child has clothing and accessories that facilitate the creation of beautiful, meaningful photos.

For faculty, material readying might include using name tents in class to facilitate learning and using students’ names so they feel seen. It might mean bringing cough drops to class or making tissues available in class and one’s office for students who are sick or become emotional. It may also involve creating a welcoming and private physical space in which to meet students that can serve as a safe space for suffering disclosures. Faculty might even provide a list of various campus resources (e.g., peer counseling, hotlines, food assistance, etc.) in their syllabus, or use their course websites to provide links to such resources along with other content that might address general student concerns (e.g., articles, podcasts, and videos about how to study, be confident during a presentation, network, etc.). All of these actions make material and information resources readier-at-hand to facilitate being compassionate when needed.

Psychological Readying

Psychological readying involves all the ways people can ready their minds and hearts to encounter suffering and the sufferer in ways that facilitate being compassionate. The photographers were creative and extensive in how they psychologically prepared themselves to encounter the extreme grief and suffering that was part of the process of creating beautiful bereavement photography.

Photographers deliberately exposed themselves to other volunteers’ photographs so they would be emotionally prepared to encounter the way a baby looked before they did an actual photography session. This type of deliberate emotional inoculation through exposure to a stressor equips photographers to be able to compose themselves and execute the work of creating beautiful photos by increasing their resilience and ability to regulate their own emotions (e.g., Bonnano, 2004). In a university setting, faculty could read about students’ mental health struggles so that they are emotionally prepared to become aware of and deal with similar challenges their own students face.

Photographers also found ways to psychologically strengthen themselves by using self-affirmations derived from reflecting on the positive impacts of their work. For example, rereading notes of thanks from those they had served helped to ease the anxiety or apprehensiveness that often accompanied a new photography session and increased their prosocial motivation (e.g, Grant & Gino, 2010) . Other photographers talked to themselves on the way to a session to “fire themselves up” and repeated self-affirmations that they felt made them emotionally stronger to bear the emotional challenges encountered during a session. This sometimes included focusing on how one’s unique experiences or characteristics made them especially capable of helping others.

These readying moves could readily be applied to how professors prepare to encounter student suffering. Imagine how reading previous gratitude expressions from students about the difference one made to a student’s well being might better prepare a faculty member to face the suffering of future students. Even posting thank you notes around the office could provide faculty members with a quick and motivating visual reminder of their impact. Similarly, faculty members could deploy affirmative pep talks or reflect on their comforting strengths as means to overcome any doubts or fears about how to engage and help suffering students.

Relational Readying

A final bucket of readying moves comes from altering one’s relational context to obtain emotional and instrumental support from others that facilitates being compassionate. Photographers did this through multiple means. Some intentionally built relationships with hospital administrators and nurses who could make a difference in paving the way for seeing and working with a family. Others asked supportive family members to drive them to or from a photo session as a way to ensure the presence of social support when needed. In both cases, the presence and offerings of others made a difference in being able to do the necessary compassionate work of bereavement photography.

Faculty members could similarly engage in relational readying to prepare themselves to be compassionate with their students. Proactively building relationships with student services advisors, mental health resource providers, or other administrative professionals could facilitate rapid and effective responding to a student in need. Connections with others who teach the same students could be helpful for obtaining insights into whether students' signals of distress are general. One could also imagine the difference it would make to cultivate connections to colleagues or connect with personal sources of encouragement and support when needed before or after an encounter with a suffering student.

A Call to Ready Ourselves

In a world where there is always pain in the room and a need for compassion in all settings, the call to be compassionate as a faculty member can feel overwhelming. A focus on different forms of compassion readying suggests that there are things we as faculty can do. We can be agentic and proactive in equipping ourselves task-wise, material-wise, psychologically, and relationally to effectively recognize and respond to others’ suffering during specific instances and maintain our willingness and ability to do so over time. These forms of readying for compassion expand our imagination and our courage to be compassionate in our role as faculty members (Worline & Dutton, 2021), further expanding our capacity to make a difference in students’ lives.

We thank Sue Ashford for comments on an earlier draft of this blog.

References

Abrams, Z. (2022) Student mental health is in crisis: Campuses are rethinking their approach. MOnitor on Psychology, Oct. 12, 53(7), 60.

Bonanno, G. A. (2004). Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely aversive events? American Psychologist, 59(1), 20–28.

Dutton, J., K. Workman and A. Hardin (2014) Compassion at work. In Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, Vol. 1, 277–304.

Grant, A. and F. Gino (2010). A little thanks goes a long ways: Explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(6), 946–955

Kornfield, J. (1993) A Path With Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life (New York: Bantam Books).

Trzeciak, S. & Mazzarelli ,A. ( 2019) Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence That Caring Makes a Difference (Pensacola: Studer Group).

Wood, S. (2024) Mental health on college campuses: Challenges and solutions. . U.S News and World Report, June 6, 2024.

Worline, M. and J Dutton (2017) Awakening Compassion at Work(San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler ).

Worline, M. and J. Dutton (2021) The courage to teach with compassion: Enriching classroom design and practices to foster responsiveness to suffering. Management Learning.. 1-22, 2021.