Compassion in a T-Shirt

Episode: Are You Feeling Too Much? The Hidden Cost of Empathy at Work
Host: Dr Stan Steindl
Guest: Tanya Cooper, Clinical Psychologist
Date: October 17, 2025

Overview of the Episode

This episode explores the hidden costs of empathy in helping professions, with a focus on how empathy can both nourish and deplete us—especially during times of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Tanya Cooper draws from both personal experience and research to conceptualize empathy as an "internal ecosystem," discussing the need for balance between feeling, thinking, and acting with empathy and compassion, and how to protect oneself from burnout and empathic overwhelm. The discussion is practical and deeply personal, highlighting strategies for self-support and the cultivation of self-compassion.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Tanya’s Empathy “Ecosystem” Origins

[01:43 – 06:33]

• Personal Experience as Foundation: Tanya shares how her 25 years in psychology, especially working through Melbourne's severe lockdowns, forced her to confront new depths of empathic strain and burnout.
  • “How can I hold my big-heartedness in a way that can serve people, but also in a way that is not to my detriment?” (Tanya, 02:45)
• Pandemic as Tipping Point:
  • Personal and collective distress rose; Tanya was simultaneously supporting clients, teaching, and coping with her own vulnerability as someone with chronic health conditions and family on the front lines.
  • Usual incidental interactions—bumping into coworkers, chatting with the barista—were lost, eroding her natural resilience and support (the “implicit scaffolding” of daily life).
  • Quote: “All of those lovely cadences especially around social connection just got so smashed... Social safeness took a hit... it just created a whole threat system, nervous system activation around social connection itself.” (Stan, 10:44)

Defining and Dissecting the Empathy Ecosystem

[12:28 – 24:13]

• The Three Modes:
  1. Experience Sharing (Affective/Feeling Empathy): Feeling what others feel; being an “emotional sponge.”
     • “If you take a sponge and you drop it into a puddle, I don’t just absorb the water. I’m absorbing the grit and the dirt and whatever... I’m just kind of wired that way.” (Tanya, 13:37)
  2. Cognitive Empathy: Perspective-taking, understanding someone’s experience, the "thinking" mode.
  3. Compassion: Merging empathy with action and an intention to help; acts as a buffer.
     • “When we have empathic understanding and empathic thinking combined with action... that actually buffers us.” (Tanya, 15:44)
• Empathy Ecosystem As Dynamic: Depending on circumstance and job task, the balance of these three modes should shift—sometimes suppressing feeling empathy is essential to function safely (e.g., for surgeons), while in therapy a flexible balance is needed.
  • Memorable Moment: Tanya’s karate story—compassion mid-competition disrupted her “anticipator” edge and resulted in a broken nose.
    • “For a split second I felt compassion for this girl because she was so frustrated... And she hit me in the face so hard that she broke my nose. And I remember thinking, this didn’t work out.” (Tanya, 21:40)
  • Quote: “That balance of my empathy ecosystem didn’t suit the task.” (Tanya, 22:11)

Empathic Tendencies, Sensitivity & Individual Differences

[24:13 – 36:22]

• Personal & Job-Related Factors: Recognizing one’s natural empathy “set point” (as per Elaine Aron’s "Highly Sensitive Person" concept and Terry Moyers’ “empathy rubber band”) is key; so is understanding what the situation/job demands.
• Pandemic as Empathic Overload: Saturation of distress leads to "dehumanizing defense"—helpers switch off, become blunt or businesslike.
  • “We were starting to become empathically strained... starting to get blunt... just become very businesslike.” (Tanya, 30:53)
• Offering Hope: Highly sensitive people absorb both pain and joy deeply; deliberate practices are needed to “take in the good” to balance the negativity.

Managing Empathic Overload: Strategies & Practices

[36:22 – 53:31]

• Deliberate Layered Self-Care:
  • Standard self-care isn’t enough. Tanya describes layering multiple supports:
    • Daily self-compassion meditations (inspired by Kristin Neff, especially before the day begins)
    • Coherent breathing to calm the nervous system
    • Movement between sessions; not remaining stationary for hours
    • Micro-gestures in therapy, like placing a hand over the heart (proven to release oxytocin and self-soothe)
      • Quote: “I am with you in this moment, but I’m also regulating and holding on to me as well. I’m holding on to you and me right now.” (Tanya, 44:00)
  • Noting clients began mirroring these gestures—even unconsciously—creating moments of mutual regulation.
• Absorbing Positivity—a Practical Example:
  • Implementing Rick Hanson’s HEAL framework: Noticing positive experiences in daily life (teddy bears in windows, notes from neighbors during lockdown), “taking them in” intentionally, dwelling on and “enriching” these moments so they become inner resources.
    • “Instead of letting it go through to the goalkeeper as just a cognitive thought... I was like, no, no, no, I’ve got to take this in. This is the heal. I’ve got to heal myself, right?” (Tanya, 49:11)
    • “I connected with love. And now I can use it later because I deliberately took it into my being in a way that I can kind of elicit and bring forth in a really felt sense.” (Tanya, 51:34)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “How can I hold my big-heartedness in a way that can serve people, but also in a way that is not kind of to my detriment?”
  — Tanya, 02:45

• “All of those sort of lovely cadences especially around social connection just got so smashed, you know, and not only was social connection out of reach, but social safeness took a hit.”
  — Stan, 10:44

• “For a split second in my body, I felt compassion for this girl... and I just dropped my hands and... she hit me in the face so hard that she broke my nose. And I remember thinking, this didn't work out.”
  — Tanya, 21:40

• “That balance of my empathy ecosystem didn’t suit the task. Right.”
  — Tanya, 22:11

• On managing the pandemic: “I noticed during the pandemic... we were starting to suffer from what people have termed the dehumanizing defense... we were starting to become empathically strained because of our collective experience sharing.”
  — Tanya, 29:40

• “I instinctively put my hand over my heart... How cool is it that putting your hand on your chest releases oxytocin, right?”
  — Tanya, 43:07

• “Instead of letting it go through to the goalkeeper as just a cognitive thought... I’ve got to take this in. This is the heal. I’ve got to heal myself, right?”
  — Tanya, 49:11

• “A radical act of compassion is to actually take these deliberate steps to honor my tendencies and to… understand my internal empathy ecosystem...”
  — Tanya, 52:56

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:43 – Tanya’s early struggles with empathy and burnout
• 04:11 – The impact of Melbourne’s pandemic lockdown on helping professionals
• 10:44 – How loss of incidental social contacts affects resilience
• 13:37 – “Emotional sponge” analogy and affective empathy
• 15:44 – How compassionate action buffers empathic pain (neuroscience research)
• 21:40 – Karate metaphor; when misplaced compassion disrupts the task
• 30:53 – Empathy overload and defense mechanisms among helpers during crisis
• 36:22 – Recognizing personal “set points” and tailoring empathy practices
• 39:16 – Tanya’s self-compassion and nervous system regulation routine
• 44:00 – Co-regulation in therapy: Hand-on-heart gesture
• 49:11 – Deliberate absorption of positive experiences (HEAL framework)
• 52:56 – Embracing self-knowledge as radical compassion

Key Takeaways and Summary

• Empathy is Not One-Dimensional: It comprises affective (feeling), cognitive (thinking), and motivational (acting) elements; each must be balanced according to personal tendencies and the demands of the work.
• Self-Awareness is Essential: Understanding your own sensitivity and empathy “set point” informs necessary self-care adaptations.
• Self-Compassion and Regulation Must Be Deliberate: Intentionally building routines, rituals, and mindful practices are crucial, particularly when external sources of support are stripped away.
• Small Gestures Matter: Both in personal regulation and in therapeutic relationships, small acts—like a hand on the heart or noticing kindness in the environment—can profoundly shift our neurobiology and sense of connection.
• Absorb the Good as Counterbalance: Actively seeking out and “installing” positive experiences replenishes emotional reserves and sustains the capacity for compassion in ongoing adversity.
• Radical Self-Care Isn’t Just a Bubble Bath: True self-care is about deep understanding, respect, and deliberate nurturing of your empathy ecosystem—so you can sustainably show up for others and yourself.

For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

This episode provides validation, practical frameworks, and actionable tips for anyone in a helping profession (or anyone feeling emotionally “flooded” by others’ pain). It encourages self-compassion as an ethical and necessary foundation for sustaining compassion for others, especially in relentless or crisis circumstances. The tone is gentle, insightful—and both host and guest model the heartfelt, science-informed approach they advocate.