How to prevent Vicarious Trauma?

Posted by Jennifer Rick on May 27th, 2019

Vicarious Trauma can be quite tricky to understand at first, but in simpler words it can be explained as that condition where the people experience the same situation when working with those people who have experienced positive or negative traumatic experiences. In the other words, it can be explained as transformation a person experiences in the inner mind which is a result of working with traumatic clients or materials. Vicarious traumatisation can also be referred to as traumatic stress, which is a result of stress that has been experienced by helping or wanting to help the suffering person.

What are the signs of Vicarious Trauma?

Signs of vicarious trauma, may not be same in all cases, but it happens that there will be some common signs observed in most of the person’s who are undergoing this condition. So, by identifying these signs preventing vicarious trauma becomes quite easy. These signs can be classified into four groups that are:

•          Emotional signs – Prolonged grief, sadness, anxiety, irritability, labile mood, depression, tuning out and anger.
•          Behavioural signs – Isolation, Avoiding, numbance, prolonging working hours, combines work and personal life, develops habit of alcohol consumption, will challenge for risky behaviours, change in sleeping and food habits.
•          Physical signs – Headaches, hot sweats, hives, anxiety, heartburn, migraines, tics and stomach ulcers.
•          Spiritual – change in relationship along with the meaning, there will be drastic reduction in the sense of connecting to others, reduction in sense of purpose and sense of agency.

Is preventing vicarious trauma difficult?

Preventing vicarious trauma may be difficult, but is not impossible. The ripples effects of vicarious traumatic conditions are damaging, quite complex and at the same time pervasive. It is a normal reaction that drives to a stressful condition, due to the multiple exposure to traumatic material. As per the ecological theorists, it can be stated that self-care routines of people helping or working under traumatic conditions, is the interaction between individuals as well as their environments. In most of the cases, vicarious trauma is caused only due to the influence of people at work places. So as per the researches, it has been stated that two reasons are playing a key role for this condition. They are:

•          Self care routines in organizations and their procedures, different types of cultures also facilitate and opportunities due to bars.
•          Some of the organizational cultures as well as policies will necessitate certain types of self routines.

In this way, preventing vicarious trauma is possible. Apart from this trauma informed practice workshop are provided by Dr Erin Holloway. She helps people to deal traumatic situations wisely and making the one come out from those conditions as early as possible by identifying the signs of vicarious trauma.