Essay On Vicarious Trauma

The term “Psychological trauma” refers to damage wrought from a traumatic event, which that damages one’s ability to cope with stressors. “Trauma” is commonly defined as an exposure to a situation in which a person is confronted with an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to self or others’ physical well-being (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Specific types of client trauma frequently encountered by which therapists and other mental health workers frequently encounter in a clinical setting include sexual abuse, physical , or sexual assault, natural disasters such as earthquakes or tsunamis, domestic violence, and school or/and work related violence (James & Gilliland, 2001). Traumatic

A child’s sense of self as separate from the world is formulated early in development. Children exposed to early trauma, especially by a primary care giver, develop a distorted sense of the self, others, and the world. When exposed to trauma, children become overwhelmed and are unable to effectively self-regulate thus leading to a disjointed sense of self. They have a tendency to lose hope and expect that life will be dangerous thus challenging their ability to survive (Terr, 1992). Survival becomes the predominant drive for children exposed to trauma and their focus becomes toward responding and adapting to a potentially threatening environment. Feelings of trust and the sense of self become compromised as resources are allocated toward coping with threats. Traumatized children experience guilt and low self-esteem and perceive themselves as unlovable and unworthy of protection or love (Johnson, 1985, 1987).

Let us first look at who are victims are. As I see it, there are four victims to every trauma the patient(s), the family, the staff, and you. It seems that in our hurry to treat the patient we often move the others to a secondary or tertiary role (the staff and you). This is not necessarily the case. If you don’t take care of you, then the others will not be able to benefit from your ministry.

The most damaging form of trauma is interpersonal trauma which is far more likely than other traumas, such as car accidents, to give rise to posttraumatic symptoms (Van der Kolk, 1989). Maybe the worst form of interpersonal trauma is that inflicted by a child’s carers. When a carer turns abuser, then the world feels unsafe and unpredictable. Serious abuse often leads to fear, helplessness, shame… (Music 206)

on preventing trauma in children, by giving them the physical and emotional attention they deserve.

What becomes vicarious trauma is when new experiences and information are unable to integrate into existing schemas. The experience of working with traumatic materials nullifies current schemas causing distress; the schemas must be adapted to absorb new information (Cohen & Collens, 2013; McCann & Pearlman, 1990). When a social workers experiences VT, these schemas have been altered negatively which causes distress and hyper-awareness to the traumatic materials which support the altered schemas (Cohen & Collens, 2013; McCann & Pearlman, 1990). Therefore, our beliefs of control and power we have over our environment are linked to how we experience and manage traumatic materials (Michalopoulos & Aparicip,

These negative effects are often called vicarious or secondary traumas. For instance, a clinician might hear the individual’s traumatic story and feel shocked, which can lead to changes in behavior, mood, and relationships. The clinician may also have intrusive thoughts concerning the individual’s traumatic story. Thus, it is important to have a plan to counteract these changes. It is vital for counselors to increase their education on trauma, such as attending workshops and conferences, reading books and articles, and attending webinars specifically for trauma. Clinician’s can also speak with other helping professionals who work with trauma victims to normalize their feelings and behaviors. As always, counselors can go speak with their supervisor when they are in this

In previous sections, the report described trauma, trauma-specific services, and trauma symptoms on a broad basis. Additionally, it's important to explicate what a trauma-informed organization (TIO) looks like. At their core, TIOs demonstrate a commitment to having every facet of their organization, including all personnel, executing services through a trauma-informed lens. In TIOs, all staff have a basic knowledge about trauma and its complexities, broadly understand how trauma makes their clients vulnerable, how to provide services that avoid retraumatization, and deliver services that facilitate client participation.1 Trauma-informed organizations typically share five key characteristics: cultural competency, client-centric services and

In today’s society with wars and other issues that affect the world, counselors have vicarious trauma or secondary trauma stress because the interactions with clients are repetitive. The role of the counselor is to help survivors and first responders deal with the on slot of issues one could encounter, so being able to help clients incorporate ways of coping will help ease the pain from the crisis of events such as the or the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami and Charleston Church Mascara shooting. As counselors continue to see patients who are suffering, it is important to recognize when vicarious trauma or secondary trauma stress are occurring and take time not to be emotional mentally involve in living the trauma with the

“Traumatic losses, manmade and natural, test the resilience of those who experience them. How individuals react to national crises and traumatic events, and the factors that promote resilience or increase the risk for problems following trauma” (National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). It is very important to know how to work with traumatized patients and what their needs are. Traumatized can affect many people in many different ways. A traumatized patient may experience a situation that was very troubled for them but may not be for others. Here we will talk about the specific needs and methods used to communicate effectively with a patient who is experiencing trauma in their life.

Straussner and Calanan (2014) remind us that in spite of developing research that is offering up a solid base of systematic information surrounding hopeful interventions, there is still a lot to be gleaned about successful interventions with traumatized children and adults—to make sure that we do not make the situation worse. Straussner and Calanan (2014) finally caution that because of the danger of encountering secondary trauma, social workers should be cognizant of the peril of laboring over large caseloads of traumatized persons and be taught to take care of themselves so that they do not turn into part of the overall issue, but are a successful part of the

*note for the purpose of this survey trauma is defined as an event more overwhelming that a person ordinarily would be expected to

1&2 In searching for someone to interview on the subject I picked one of my Professors, Frank Rubino. Mr. Rubino is a professor that I have had for multiple classes and I felt that he would be a good candidate due to the subject material he teaches about in his psychology classes as well as his experience with people who have suffered trauma in different phases of their trauma. I believed that he would give me a great in-depth look at the effects of trauma and after my interview with him I was not disappointed.

Among the ages of fifteen and forty-four, domestic violence is the dominant source of trauma in our country (Domestic Violence). In the United States, primarily women and children are the ones affected by the domestic abuse. They suffer mentally, physically, and emotionally for an extensive amount of time attempting to cope with the terror. It is hard to realize that this is not only a situation that is demonstrated in television shows or movies, but this could be happening to people you encounter with on a daily basis. Some victims of domestic violence are oblivious to the signs or causes that could be developing the results of abuse, but when they recognize the situation, they have the decision to receive guidance to the solution of the overall problems.

Another more modern definition depicts trauma as, “an overwhelming event that threatens the health, safety, and security of the individual and cannot be emotionally and cognitively processed” (Summers & Barber, 2010). As clinicians, if one chooses to work with this definition, it is important to take both parts of it into consideration when assessing patients, because the concept of trauma has taken on a different meaning in societal terms. More often than not, people will consider any emotional experience they cannot seem to process after going through an experience as trauma. An example of this would be the loss of a loved one. While it may be a very challenging experience for some, grief for someone who has died is generally not considered a trauma under