Dóra Perczel-Forintos

Speaker

The mindful professional: cultivating presence, compassion, and balance in helping roles

Speech

Helping professionals – especially volunteers working in emotional support and crisis helplines – are exposed daily to human suffering, distress, and crisis situations. This continuous emotional burden can easily lead to compassion fatigue, resulting in burnout, loss of motivation, and psychological strain. Mindfulness offers a practical and evidence-based way to foster emotional balance, resilience, and professional authenticity. Cultivating mindful awareness enhances non-judgmental attention, strengthens self-reflection, and promotes acceptance of emotions – all essential skills in emotionally demanding helping roles. Research shows that regular mindfulness practice reduces stress and impulsivity, improves emotion regulation, and enhances psychological well-being. In this way, compassion fatigue can transform into compassion balance: a form of empathy that sustains rather than depletes. Mindfulness thus serves not only as a form of self-care but also as a foundation for professional quality, enabling helpers to remain authentic, present, and compassionate over the long term. In our study, we explored how mindfulness training influences these processes among helpline volunteers and will present the findings in our talk.

Dóra Perczel-Forintos is a full professor of clinical psychology, psychotherapist, and accredited cognitive behavioral therapist (EABCT, EAP), as well as a mindfulness teacher. She studied at Harvard University, Oxford University, and the University of Padua. Her research covers suicide prevention, social anxiety, obesity, PTSD, and the clinical application of mindfulness. For 24 years, she led the clinical psychology training program at Semmelweis University as the head of its Department of Clinical Psychology. In collaboration with the cognitive therapy research group at Oxford University, she played a key role in promoting cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness in Hungary. She has authored numerous scientific publications and textbooks, including Low-Intensity Psychological Methods, which focuses on improving access to psychological care in primary care.