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Title
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How to Care Carefully: Self-Compassion as a Response to Burnout in the Interpreting Field
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Creator
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Autumn Anderson
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Degree Name
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Master of Arts in Interpreter Studies
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Project Type
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Thesis
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Date
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6/15/2025
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Abstract
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Burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress are known to be prevalent in the field of ASL-English interpreting. What is less clearly defined is if or how budding professionals are prepared for this reality, where seasoned interpreters gain their coping skills, and how similar fields are addressing this challenge successfully. Rooted in the Self-Compassion Theory developed by Dr. Kristin Neff, data was collected using Dr. Stamms’ Professional Quality of Life Survey (ProQOL), Dr. Neff’s Self-Compassion Scale - Short Form (SCS-SF), and Dr. Kandi Wiens’ Burnout Risk Assessment. The survey went out online for three weeks, gathering 74 responses. Only three participants (4.1%) said that their Interpreter Education Program (IEP) addressed self-compassion, compared to the 15 participants (20.3%) whose programs provided formal education on self-care. Ultimately, this work assesses if levels of self-compassion correlate with levels of burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress among American Sign Language (ASL)-English interpreters. Notably, those whose scores suggest high self compassion were 20% likely to have higher risk for burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and low job satisfaction. For those whose scores suggested low self-compassion, that risk jumped to 94.44%. The data gathered from this work contributes to the understanding of the role self-compassion, as defined by Dr. Kristin Neff, can play in mitigating the effects of burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress in the interpreting profession.
Keywords: self-compassion, ASL-English interpreting, burnout
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Keywords
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ASL-English Interpreting
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Burnout
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Self-Compassion
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Committee Member
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Sara Yurkovic
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Erin Trine
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Rights
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Western Oregon University Library has determined, as of 06/20/2025, this item is in copyright, which is held by the author. Users may use the item in accordance with copyright limitations and exceptions, including fair use. For other uses, please ask permission from the author.
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https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en
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Language
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eng
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Type
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Text
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Identifier
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AutumnAnderson_Thesis_2025
