動保文官同情疲勞現象、成因、影響及因應策略之思辨

An Empirical Study of Compassion Fatigue Phenomenon: Causes, Influences and Reflections of the Easing Mechanism of Animal Protection Administrators

護理人員、社會工作人員、神職人員等特殊助人者的工作，常會發生過度融入受助者的痛苦，而產生嚴重的「同情疲勞」現象，影響工作時的專業判斷，造成組織管理困境，甚至反而傷害了原先的受助者。對此，過去的心理學研究，已經建構起細緻的理論，內容包括同情疲勞的意涵、造成同情疲勞的原因、同情疲勞造成的影響，及改善同情疲勞的方法等。然而，在政府部門行政工作中，也有許多會產生「同情疲勞」現象的職務，但傳統政治學與行政學卻因故未投入關注，本研究便以國內動物保護行政人員做為調查對象，結合心理學及公共組織領域的相關理論，對這種特殊的同情疲勞困境，提出嘗試性的解釋，並對實務上的可能解決策略提出反思。研究發現，渠一方面因同情受助者，但卻在執行政府法令產生高度道德矛盾，甚至來自多元利害關係人的道德壓力，使其產生非常嚴重的同情疲勞，影響其行政的判斷能力，產生道德疏離問題及離職的猶豫。但克服此類困境的方法，無論在個人層次、主管層次及政府層次，都仍存在倫理的辯證，尚需後續研究者釐清。

Helpers such as nursing personnel, social workers and clergymen are often involved so much in aided people's pain that they may suffer serious “compassion fatigue”. The ramifications of this range from poor professional judgment, to organization managerial dilemma, to hurting aided persons they serve. Past psychological research has already built an elegant theory for analyzing the meaning of compassion fatigue, the causes of it, the influence of it and the ways to conquer it. Although there are many administrative positions in the government which could lead to “compassion fatigue”, for some reasons, traditional theories in political science and public administration do not mention this phenomenon. In our article, we take Taiwan’s animal protection administrators as the research subjects, combining psychology and theories in public organizations, so that we can propose a tentative explanation for this special compassion fatigue phenomenon and reflect on workable coping strategies. Our research shows that administrators would feel fairly serious compassion fatigue if they are pressured by a combination of the compassion for the aided persons, the moral conflicts of implementing the law and the moral pressure from multiple stakeholders. The fatigue influences their abilities of administrative judgment, resulting in moral disengagement and resignation hesitation. However, on an individual, managerial or even governmental level, there are ethical arguments in conquering these dilemmas, which need to be clarified by future researchers.