Get Vicarious Trauma - American Counseling Association

Relationship changes No separation of personal and professional time. Viewing other people who don't work within your field as less important. Difficulty relating to others' day-to-day experiences without comparing them to those you serve or yourself. Lacking a personal life outside of work.

Vicarious trauma is a process of change resulting from empathetic engagement with trauma survivors. Anyone who engages empathetically with survivors of traumatic incidents, torture, and material relating to their trauma, is potentially affected, including doctors and other health professionals.

The ABCs of Managing Secondary Trauma: Awareness, Balance, and Connection. Being aware of how our work can impact us, and achieving and maintaining a sense of balance and connection in our lives, can prevent us from experiencing secondary trauma and/or mitigate its harmful effects.

Cynicism has been called the “hallmark” of compassion fatigue and vicarious traumatization. You may express cynicism towards your colleagues, towards your clients/patients and towards your family and friends.

This work-related trauma exposure can occur from such experiences as listening to individual clients recount their victimization; looking at videos of exploited children; reviewing case files; hearing about or responding to the aftermath of violence and other traumatic events day after day; and responding to mass ...

the impact on a therapist of repeated emotionally intimate contact with trauma survivors. More than countertransference, VT affects the therapist across clients and situations. It results in a change in the therapist's own worldview and sense of the justness and safety of the world.

The ABCs of Managing Secondary Trauma: Awareness, Balance, and Connection. Being aware of how our work can impact us, and achieving and maintaining a sense of balance and connection in our lives, can prevent us from experiencing secondary trauma and/or mitigate its harmful effects.

The vicarious trauma they feel can cause the caregiver's worldview to shift; it may also lead to “compassion fatigue” and burnout. Compassion fatigue occurs when caregivers spend so much time assisting victims of trauma that they have no time to care for themselves.