In responding to distressing events, they may experience empathic distress fatigue, compassion fatigue, stress, burnout, and self-criticism, which in turn can alter their ability to provide compassion to both self and others, and can create persistent self-criticism and negative rumination.
The determination of consent often can lead to distressing cross-examinations of rape victims in court.
As a result, there may be pain in the chest, inflammation of the stomach leading to distressing vomiting, and diarrhea from the colitis.
Yazidi women released by Isis this week were gang-raped in public by fighters and tortured by their captors, according to distressing accounts of their ordeals.
They said their clients were denied the additional safeguards available to child detainees, subjected to distressing interviews with immigration officers who were not trained to deal with children, and had their welfare put at risk.
If we are drawn to distressing images – a man committing suicide, a drowning asylum seeker, a captive set on fire – does that show our capacity for empathy or does it make us callous voyeurs?
