What is compassion fatigue?

Compassion fatigue is a concept in personal epistemology: Emotional boundaries protect you from absorbing others' emotional states as your own. They allow empathy without enmeshment.

Example: Your colleague walks into a meeting visibly frustrated about a client call. Within five minutes, you notice your own jaw tightening, your posture shifting, your internal monologue turning negative — even though your morning was fine. Without emotional boundaries, you absorbed their frustration as if it were yours. With emotional boundaries, you can notice their frustration, feel genuine concern, and choose whether to engage — without your own emotional state being hijacked.

This concept is part of Phase 33 (Boundary Setting) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for boundary setting.