1 . The nature of compassion fatigue (同情疲劳) means that many working in traditional care-giving roles are likely to experience its symptoms. This includes first responders, medical professionals, social workers, journalists, and lawyers specializing in family law or criminal law.
Kelli Collins, a licensed family therapist, remarks “Think about muscle fatigue—if you work out too hard, your muscles might simply give out. In the same way, compassion fatigue means your ability to offer compassion to others is dramatically affected.”
Collins herself experienced compassion fatigue as a young therapist working in a community mental health setting, where she “had the strong desire to help” but quickly realized some things were out of her “rang of influence”. She felt herself becoming easily annoyed with loved ones, sleeping very little, and fantasizing about changing careers. It was an overwhelming time, during which she felt she was failing her clients.
“I thought that by giving endless compassion to my clients, I was ‘leaving it all on the field’. In fact, bearing the responsibility for my clients’ pain without consideration for my own needs and limits meant that I wasn’t a particularly effective therapist,” she says.
Lynne Hughes, who founded Comfort Zone in 1999 and now serves as CEO, lost both her parents as a child, experiencing first-hand the lack of resources and support for grieving children. Hughes expresses similar feelings about the challenge of compassion fatigue, stressing the importance of looking inward.
“Suffering from compassion fatigue does not mean you’re bad at helping or caring, it only means the scale between caring for others and caring for yourself is no longer balanced,” she says. “When you’re in a role where you’re nurturing and caring for others — it’s crucial to extend that nurture and care to yourself so that ‘your well’ does not run dry.”
But both Hughes and Collins emphasize that it’s not only traditional caregivers who experience compassion fatigue. “It is applicable to anyone in a caring role,” says Hughes, while Collins believes it is a uniquely human condition, occupational or not.
1. Why does Collins mention the muscle fatigue?| A．To describe she is in a bad mood. |
| B．To show she is eager to give a hand. |
| C．To suggest she has limited pity for others. |
| D．To explain she is much tired of her customers. |
| A．Care for yourself while caring for others. |
| B．Compassion fatigue has nothing to do with career. |
| C．Those with compassion fatigue are poor at helping. |
| D．Shy persons always tend to suffer compassion fatigue. |
| A．Pity. | B．Nurture. | C．Symptoms. | D．Occupation. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By quoting arguments. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By analyzing reasons and causes. |
Ari was a lonely young man who lived on a large island called Iceland. Most of the villagers were fishermen. Ari often wondered what lay beyond the island. The days were long and cold, and he spent many hours in his small house thinking about what life would be like in a warm, sunny place.
“I shall find a true friend far away from here,” Ari thought, and he began writing a letter. He described himself as a loner who had few visitors, yet he had a warm heart. It was his hope to find true friendship with someone who understood his sadness.
Ari described the volcanos on his snowy island and the impressive glaciers (冰川). He wrote about the sky turning green, blue, yellow, and pink at night when the Northern Lights shined in the heavens like silk. For days, Ari poured his soul and innermost thoughts into the letter. Then he placed it into a bottle, and sealed (密封) it tightly.
Ari threw the bottle into the sea and wished upon the brightest star that a true friend would find the letter.
A year later, Ari received a letter. He had no idea who would be writing him, but with joy, he opened the envelope.
Dear Ari,
I found your simple but lovely letter. Imagine my surprise when your little bottle from so far away washed up on my shore. I; too, live on an island. It is called Sardinia. My island is warm and filled with mountains, beaches and waters. Most of the people I know are my family, and I, too, long for a true friend. Now that you have found a friend far away, I do hope that you will write and tell me more about your life and people.
Your new friend,
Renata
注意：1. 续写词数应为150个左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
For three years, Ari and Renata exchanged letters.
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Without telling Renata, Ari started a long journey.
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3 . Mindfulness meditation(冥想) is a practice used to achieve mental quiet and a sense of calm. It is a series of steps used to encourage reflection and deep breathing and to increase self-awareness.
A mindfulness meditation course may be as effective at reducing anxiety as a common medication(药物), according to a new study. The research, published on November 9 in JAMA Psychiatry, involved a group of 276 adults with untreated anxiety disorders. Half of the patients were randomly selected to take 10 to 20mg of escitalopram, the generic form of Lexapro, a common medication used to treat anxiety and depression. The other half were assigned to an eight-week course in mindfulness-based stress reduction. The results were stunning: Both groups experienced about a 20% reduction in their anxiety symptoms over the eight-week period.
The patients assigned to the meditation group were asked to attend a mindfulness meditation group class in-person once a week. Each class was around two-and-a-half hours long and held at a local clinic. They were also asked to meditate on their own for around 40 minutes per day. Hoge, the lead author on the study, compared the time commitment to “taking an exercise class or an art class”.
But according to Joseph Arpaia, an Oregon-based psychiatrist specializing in mindfulness and meditation, the daily time commitment is likely too much for many patients dealing with anxiety.
Arpaia says that he has worked to find less time-intensive mindfulness methods to help patients manage their anxiety. One technique he teaches is called a “one-breath reset” that helps patients calm themselves over the course of a single breath.
But despite his reservations, “It’s always interesting to see meditation work, and it works as well as medication,” he said. “My hope would be that people realize that there are things other than medication that can work.”
“My other hope would be that they realize that if sitting and following your breath makes you feel relaxed, great, but it doesn’t make everyone feel relaxed. Find something that does. Read a book, go for a walk, spend time gardening,” he said.
1. What’s the main feature of mindfulness meditation?| A．It works in removing anxiety. | B．It makes people’s mind empty. |
| C．It drives people to keep calm. | D．It focuses on thoughts and awareness. |
| A．Its result is hard to understand. |
| B．Its participants should attend courses face to face. |
| C．Its function is like an exercise class or an art class. |
| D．Its participants are divided into two equal groups freely. |
| A．Objective. | B．Skeptical. | C．Conservative. | D．Approving. |
| A．They learn more about meditation. |
| B．They can bring a “one-breath reset” into focus. |
| C．They choose a proper way to relax besides meditation. |
| D．They can read books to develop mind instead of medication. |
4 . My mother-in-law left us an unexpected and priceless gift. After she died, my husband and his sister were going through the contents of her house when they discovered every letter that we had written her during our 46-year marriage. She also kept all the letters that my mother had written to her over the years.
During the pandemic(大流行病), I've had time to go through these letters. I read of our early married life, our struggle to have children and, especially, the progress of our three children from birth to adulthood. I began writing all these details for my children, and now they have details about when they were small. I discovered much that I had forgotten.
To read the letters written by my mother to my husband's mother is a gift. I wish that I had saved my mother’s letters to me, but now I have these letters that tell me things about my own mother that I never knew. I see that Mom and Mamma shared their great love for us, their children, and for our children, their grandchildren.
I come from a long line of letter writers and was trained to stay in touch with our parents. My grandparents loved to receive letters from across the ocean. When I was away on a student exchange in 1970, my mother told me that my grandfather kept my airmail letters in his shirt pocket and read them daily. Knowing this, I have tried my best to write to our two families regularly.
To all of you who write to me, I thank you. The handwritten word is a powerful tool of friendship; it connects us together.
Perhaps the greatest gift that these letters have given me is to see how much my husband's parents valued our letters to them. The letters helped her know her grandchildren and feel like part of our lives. I shall file them for my children so that they can read the events of our lives and know that they, too, were treasured.
Keep writing to those you love. Those letters are our greatest gifts to each other.
1. What did the author do after she read the letters?| A．She had a talk with her mother. |
| B．She passed on the letters to her children. |
| C．She required her children to write letters regularly. |
| D．She wrote down details about her children's childhood. |
| A．How the author stayed in touch with her parents. |
| B．What handwritten letters mean to the author. |
| C．What inspired the author to keep writing letters. |
| D．How the author's grandfather influenced her. |
| A．They help us make new friends. |
| B．They allow us to practice writing skills. |
| C．They strengthen emotional exchanges. |
| D．They improve our hands-on abilities. |
| A．Unforgettable gifts | B．Parents love |
| C．Family letters | D．Handwritten memories |
