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Vicarious Traumatization: A Framework for Understanding the Psychological Effects of Working with Victims
Abstract
Within the context of their new constructivist self-development theory, the authors discuss therapists'' reactions to clients'' traumatic material. The phenomenon they term vicarious traumatization can be understood as related both to the graphic and painful material trauma clients often present and to the therapist''s unique cognitive schemas or beliefs, expectations, and assumptions about self and others. The authors suggest ways that therapists can transform and integrate clients'' traumatic material in order to provide the best services to clients, as well as to protect themselves against serious harmful effects.
... These scholars faced difficulties from the initial stages of preparing their dissertation proposals to defend their dissertations and went through a range of experiences, from trauma to satisfaction. To better understand the scholars' perspectives on dissertation writing, I examined McCann and Pearlman's (1990) theory of vicarious trauma, Astin's (1999) theory of person and environment, and Bronfenbrenner's (1979) theory of ecological models of human development. The study revealed that scholars often experience depression and trauma at certain stages of dissertation writing. ...
... The concept of student involvement in higher education received ample discussion from theoretical perspectives, particularly in writing a dissertation. For this paper, I looked into the issue from two theoretical frames-the vicarious trauma theory (McCann & Pearlman, 1990) and the person-environment theory (Astin,1999;Bronfenbrenner, 1993). McCann and Pearlman (1990) argue that exposure to traumatic events impacts an individual's academic achievements. ...
... For this paper, I looked into the issue from two theoretical frames-the vicarious trauma theory (McCann & Pearlman, 1990) and the person-environment theory (Astin,1999;Bronfenbrenner, 1993). McCann and Pearlman (1990) argue that exposure to traumatic events impacts an individual's academic achievements. Individuals often experience these traumatic events, fearing rejection by the research committee members. ...
In this autoethnographic study, I explore research scholars' emotional and psychological challenges while preparing their dissertations. To gather data, I reflect on my experience supervising three M Phil in English Language Education students at a university in Nepal. These scholars faced difficulties from the initial stages of preparing their dissertation proposals to defend their dissertations and went through a range of experiences, from trauma to satisfaction. To better understand the scholars' perspectives on dissertation writing, I examined McCann and Pearlman's (1990) theory of vicarious trauma, Astin's (1999) theory of person and environment, and Bronfenbrenner's (1979) theory of ecological models of human development. The study revealed that scholars often experience depression and trauma at certain stages of dissertation writing. This study highlights the crucial role of the supervisor, not just in academic matters but also in the mental well-being of scholars. The insights contribute to the discourse on how personal characteristics and environmental factors influence an individual's academic development. It emphasizes the importance of the supervisor's role in understanding scholars' needs and interests to create a suitable research environment for struggling scholars.
... STS is characterized by intrusion (e.g., unintended thoughts and/or disturbing dreams about one's work with clients), avoidance (e.g., feeling emotionally numb or discouraged about the future; having little interest in being around others), and arousal (e.g., trouble sleeping, feeling jumpy or annoyed, and trouble concentrating) (Bride et al., 2004). Trauma workers can experience disruptive and painful psychological effects months or years after their initial work with victims (McCann & Pearlman, 1990). For example, Peled-Avram (2017) found that nine percent of Israeli social workers reported a high average level of secondary traumatization, while 14% reported very high or extremely high levels. ...
... In the meantime, we can say that having a 'low reactivity' profile does seem to offer some selfprotective features and resilience in very challenging professions. This finding is important, because past research shows that firefighters (Piazza-Gardner et al., 2014;Stanley et al., 2015), emergency and correctional workers (Duffy et al., 2015;McCann & Pearlman, 1990;Milner et al., 2017;Morrison & Joy, 2016), paramedics (Regehr et al., 2002) and social workers (Bride, 2007;Peled-Avram, 2017;Wagaman et al., 2015) have higher rates of substance use, STS and suicidality. Thus, low-reactivity trauma workers, who appear to self-select at a high rate into these professions, may be protected from such destructive outcomes. ...
Trauma work involves intervening with others enduring acute pain and suffering, often with heavy psychological and physical health impacts. An important question is whether dispositional empathy helps or hurts trauma workers in their occupational functioning. The current study addresses this gap in the research literature by using a person-centered approach to examine the empathy profiles and professional outcomes of a broad sample of trauma workers ( n = 315). We measured their trait empathy and organizational outcomes (occupational burnout, person-job fit, turnover intentions, job performance), and found three distinct empathy profiles which differed significantly in their occupational functioning. A ‘self-focused’ empathy profile (dominated by high personal distress responding) reported the worst functioning; an ‘other-oriented’ profile (high on perspective taking and empathic concern) had more positive functioning, and an unexpected ‘low reactivity’ profile (a full SD below the general population on empathy facets) showed the lowest exhaustion. Exploratory analyses revealed that first responders (e.g., police, firefighters, EMTs, paramedics) were overrepresented in the ‘low reactivity’ profile, while psychology-related professions (e.g., psychologists, counsellors, social workers) were underrepresented in that profile. The significance of these results, as well as their implications for empathy research and vocational counselling in the field of trauma work, are discussed.
... Due to the repeated nature of more or less traumatizing or stressful events and the inescability of the situation unless one resigns from their job, severe cases of work-related stress may resemble C-PTSD. Also, in an emphatic person, repeated contact with severely traumatized people tends to induce vicarious traumatization or compassion fatigue (Bell et al., 2003;McCann and Pearlman, 1990). Oehen and Gasser used MDMA in the first phase of a psychedelic therapy continuum to enhance motivation to change and to strengthen the therapeutic alliance, 'allowing it to become more resilient, stress-relieved, and less ambivalent'. ...
... Healthcare and social work employees may often suffer from significant stress caused by vicarious traumatization (Bell et al., 2003;McCann and Pearlman, 1990), yet avoid seeking help due to fear of stigmatization. The available services may also be unsuitable or ineffective. ...
This paper is now included as Chapter 5 in the book 'Psychedelic Therapy in Practice: Case Studies of Self-Treatment, Individual Therapy, and Group Therapy', available for free and without registration as a PDF file at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385040342
... Manakala skema kognitif pula merujuk kepada manifestasi keperluan psikologi yang didasari kepercayaan, harapan tentang keperluan psikologi dan jangkaan tentang diri dan individu lain yang membantu individu kaunselor untuk menyusun pengalaman mereka tentang diri sendiri dan individu lain. Di samping itu, skema kognitf juga membantu kaunselor untuk mengintepretasi pengalaman kehidupan pada masa akan datang (McCann & Pearlman, 1990). ...
... Menurut Saakvitner et al. (1998), semasa intervensi berlangsung, kaunselor mengintegrasikan peristiwa traumatik klien, konteks peristiwa tersebut dan kesannya dengan sistem kepercayaan mereka yang telah wujud dalam skema pemikiran. Pengintegrasian ini boleh mewujudkan pertentangan di antara skema pemikiran kaunselor dengan memori traumatik klien apabila pengalaman traumatik tersebut tidak selaras dengan skema pemikiran kaunselor (McCann & Pearlman, 1990). ...
Exposure to traumatic experiences routinely may affect the counselor's psychological health Past studies indicated that experienced counselors tend to use self talk as one of their psychological self care strategies to shield themselves from the psychological impact Self talk that takes place during crisis intervention was found to benefit in releasing tense emotions. However, in depth exploration of this practice as a self care strategy through empirical study is limited This study was conducted to deeply describe the practice of self talk among Malaysian counselors who are involved in crisis work by routine This qualitative research employed descriptive phenomenology as its approach Ten participants in this study were selected through purposive sampling The individual in depth interviews were conducted and analyzed thematically The findings reveal that Malaysian counselors utilize positive self talk during crisis interventions for self calming and self reaffirmation, enabling them to maintain their professional roles without being negatively affected by their clients' traumatic experiences, or other third party remarks This study introduces a potentially valuable self talk technique during intervention sessions, reducing the risk of post traumatic stress resulting from ongoing exposure to traumatic client narratives. Keywords: self talk, Malaysian counselors, crisis intervention, self care
... While a history of DFV in the lives of health professionals may be an enabler to good clinical care of survivor patients [39], caring for patients may inevitably bring up distressing or disturbing reminders of nurses' own trauma [40]. Further, all health professionals are at risk of accumulating a vicarious/secondary trauma response (sometimes called 'Compassion fatigue' or 'burnout') resultant from exposure to stories and images of the abuse of others [41][42][43]. Research suggests that vicarious trauma responses may be hastened or heightened for people whose personal lives have included trauma [40]. Adding to this trauma load: nurses are a highly gendered healthcare workforce commonly exposed to aggression and sexual harassment from patients and colleagues [44,45]. ...
... Adding to this trauma load: nurses are a highly gendered healthcare workforce commonly exposed to aggression and sexual harassment from patients and colleagues [44,45]. Vicarious trauma can affect many spheres of a sufferers' life, symptoms often mirror primary traumatic stress responses [41,46]. For health professional sufferers of primary and/or vicarious trauma, both their inner world and their world at work is likely to be significantly impacted [46]. ...
Background
Domestic, family and sexual violence is a prevalent health and social issue. Nurses may be exposed to higher rates of this violence in their personal lives compared to the community, but little is known about their polyvictimisation experiences or health and well-being impacts.
Methods
An online descriptive, cross-sectional survey of women nurses, midwives and carer members of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) (Victorian Branch) (response rate: 15.2% of nurses sent an invitation email/28.4% opened the email). Violence survey measures included: intimate partner violence (Composite Abuse Scale); child abuse and sexual violence (Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Survey items). Health measures included: Short Form-12; Fast Alcohol Screening Test; Patient Health Questionnaire-4; Short Screening for DSM-IV Posttraumatic Stress Disorder; well-being measures included: Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, social support, and financial stress. Proportions were used to describe the prevalence of violence by sociodemographic characteristics and health and well-being issues; logistic regression predicted the odds of experiencing overlapping types of violence and of experiencing health and well-being outcomes.
Results
5,982 participants (from a parent study of 10,674 nurses, midwives and carers) had experienced at least one type of lifetime violence; half (50.1%) had experienced two or three types (polyvictimisation). Survivors of child abuse were three times more likely to experience both intimate partner violence and non-partner adult sexual assault. Any violence was associated with poorer health and well-being, and the proportion of affected participants increased as the types of violence they had experienced increased. Violence in the last 12-months was associated with the poorest health and well-being.
Conclusions
Findings suggest a cumulative, temporal and injurious life course effect of domestic, family and sexual violence. The polyvictimisation experiences and health and well-being associations reported by survivor nurses, midwives and carers underscores the need for more accessible and effective workplace interventions to prevent and mitigate psychosocial ill health, especially in the recent aftermath of violence.
... STS has been defined as 'the natural and consequent behaviours and emotions resulting from knowing about a traumatising event experienced by a significant other-the stress resulting from helping or wanting to help a traumatized or suffering person', (Figley, 1995, p. 7). A similar construct, vicarious traumatisation, has been defined more broadly as the impact of indirect traumatic exposure (Canfield, 2005;McCann & Pearlman, 1990;Pearlman & Mac Ian, 1995): for the purposes of this paper, vicarious traumatisation will be used synonymously with STS. ...
... The symptoms of STS, like PTSD, may include intrusion, avoidance, arousal, and emotional numbing (Figley, 1995;Herman, 1992;McCann & Pearlman, 1990). STS can also include anxiety, depressive symptoms, effects on one's ability to work, effects on relationships outside of the workplace, and other symptoms (Craun et al., 2015;Greinacher et al., 2019), all of which can have devastating outcomes for both individuals in helping professions and their organisations. ...
Vicarious trauma (VT) is an occupational challenge incurred through hearing about traumatic experiences of others such as child maltreatment, mass casualties, and others while serving in helping professions. Without sufficient resources and support, long‐term exposure can lead to symptoms such as intrusion, avoidance, arousal, emotional numbing, anxiety, and decline in one's ability to work. Organisations can mitigate VT's impact by addressing the needs of staff through 5 evidence‐informed areas of occupational health. This project explored the impact of VT‐informed practices on organisational responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic. We compared responses from 50 organisations on strengths and weaknesses in core areas of being VT‐informed to how those organisations responded to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Subscales of the VT Organizational Readiness Guide (VT‐ORG) were utilized as the exposure variables and 4 new COVID‐19 questions served as the outcome. We ran a series of multilevel linear regression models with clustering controlled for at the organisational level. Staff ratings on 4 of the 5 pillars of the VT‐ORG were positively associated with the organisation's responsiveness to the pandemic. Various demographic factors of the employees were negatively associated with organisations’ responsiveness to the pandemic. While this study contributes to the growing research on VT, it also provides justification for helping organisations to become VT‐informed; it provides evidence that being prepared for VT can also be useful to support workers and their communities during emergencies such as the COVID‐19 pandemic.
... Furthermore, this impact goes beyond the individual who has experienced the traumatic event to include those family members or close friends who have learned about the traumatic event. This impact on family and close friends has been identified in the literature as compassion fatigue (Figley, 1995), vicarious trauma (McCann & Pearlman, 1990), or secondary traumatic stress (Figley, 1983). Each of these terms have much in common but include some subtle differences. ...
This study explored whether potential relationships existed between secondary traumatic stress exposure and various mental and behavioral health outcomes among a nationally representative sample of New Zealand high school students. Secondary data collected as part of the Youth'12 National Youth and Well-Being Survey conducted by the Adolescent Health Research Group of the University of Auckland were used for all analyses (Clark et al., 2013). Univariate, bivariate, and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression estimates were used to examine the relationships between exposure to traumatic events of close friends/family members and mental and behavioral health. Approximately 28% of students reported learning of a serious/traumatic event affecting close family or friends. There were significant correlations (p Ͻ .01) between the predictor variable (trauma experienced by close friends/family members) and emotional well-being, depression, emotional problems, conduct problems, and hyperactivity. OLS regression model estimates supported bivariate output. Findings suggest that there is a relationship between exposure to trauma from close family/friends and mental and behavioral outcomes among sampled youth. Therapists working with youth who are experiencing emotional or behavioral symptoms should investigate the role secondary trauma might have in these symptoms.
... On the other hand, this moral witnessing -a main motive or merely a side effect of their research -must not mask the risks and burdens that can accompany this area of research. The phenomenon of secondary traumatisation is known from psychotherapy and social work McCann, 1990), but must be transferred to the specific context of research, which is not per se flanked by professional self-awareness and supervision processes. In addition, the current state of research in this area needs to be analysed in more detail: It is currently still a matter of debate whether there is a risk of "transmission" or whether secondarily traumatised persons have themselves been victims of violence. ...
... With the evolution of media and technology, the public has also been exposed to trauma survivors' experiences through media sources. Narratives of fear and pain from trauma survivors are identified as key mechanisms for VT (McCann & Pearlman, 1990). S. Liu and Yang (2020) noted that repeated exposure to media messages increases the likelihood of media vicarious traumatization (MVT). ...
When exposed to traumatic events through media coverage, how do we emotionally appraise the situation? Although many factors contribute to our reasoning about media vicarious traumatization, in this article we focus on the role of metaphorical frames. This study uses an online survey experiment (N = 280 CHN adults) to investigate how irrational beliefs influence the effects of metaphorical frames on media vicarious traumatization, with a focus on the mediating role of transportation. The findings revealed that journey metaphors increased media vicarious traumatization more than war metaphors in conditions of low irrational beliefs, while no significant difference was observed in conditions of high irrational beliefs. The interaction between metaphorical frames and irrational beliefs indirectly affected media vicarious traumatization through transportation. These results improve our understanding of the framing effects of cancer metaphors and suggest practical strategies for media health coverage.
... One of the earliest attempts to describe this secondary phenomenon was by McCann and Pearlman (1990), who coined it vicarious traumatisation. Based on their assertion, vicarious traumatisation is defined as an accumulative syndrome that is associated with a pessimistic 'inner transformation' in the school counsellor that alters their 'cognitive schema', affecting the perspective of themselves, others and the world as a consequence of exposed traumatic survivor re-enactment as described through lens of constructivist self-development theory CSDT theory (Baird & Kracen, 2006;Pearlman & MacCann, 1995;Schimpff, 2019). ...
Introduction: Over 50% of school guidance counsellors who worked with traumatised children had significant compassion fatigue. Providing counselling services to sensitive trauma groups in schools can generate a psychological and occupational hazard termed compassion fatigue among school caregivers.
... Literatür incelemesinde travma çalışanları yaşadıkları dolaylı travma sürecini başarılı bir şekilde yönetebilirlerse travma sonrası büyüme düzeyini yakalayabilecekleri bildirilmektedir (53,54). Travma çalışanlarının travma sonrası büyüme düzeyini yakalayabilmesi için bazı parametrelerin teşvik edilmesi gerektiğine dair bir anlayış bulunmaktadır (örneğin; çalışma koşullarını iyileştirilmesi, terapötik sonuçlar, mesleki rolün korunması gibi) (45,55). Kurşun ve arkadaşlarının yaptığı çalışmada zorlu gruplarla çalışan ruh sağlığı profesyonellerinin psikolojik ilk yardım, kriz yönetimi ve kritik müdahalelerde bulunmaya yönelik danışmanlık ve süpervizyon almaya ihtiyaçlarının olduğu belirtilmiştir (49). ...
Toplumsal travmaya maruz kalan ruh sağlığı profesyonellerinin deneyimleri yeterince araştırılmamış bir konudur. Bu çalışmanın amacı toplumsal travmaya maruz kalmış ruh sağlığı profesyonellerinin paylaşılan travmatik gerçeklik ve baş etme deneyimlerini incelemektir. Bu çalışma tümevarımsal nitel yaklaşım kullanılarak Türkiye’de 6 Şubat 2023 tarihinde gerçekleşen depremi doğrudan yaşayan ve deprem bölgesinde ruh sağlığı hizmeti veren 18 ruh sağlığı profesyoneli ile derinlemesine görüşme yolu ile gerçekleştirilmiştir. Görüşmeden elde edilen veriler 5 kategori ve 16 alt kategori altında toplanmıştır. Katılımcılar toplumsal travmaya karşı paylaşılan travmatik gerçeklik, özdeşim, çifte maruziyet ve travmatik karşı aktarım yaşadıklarından bahsetmişlerdir. Travmaya karşı çaresizlik, üzüntü, yetersizlik ve suçluluk gibi duyguları daha yoğun yaşadıklarını, aşırı uyarılma ve kaçınma davranışı sergilediklerini ifade etmişlerdir. Katılımcılar afet bölgesinde temel ihtiyaçlarını karşılama noktasında zorlandıklarını ve gerek fiziksel alt yapı yetersizliği gerek çok fazla travma hastasının kliniğe başvurması sonucunda iş yüklerinin arttığını bildirmişlerdir. Yaşadıkları travmatik süreç ile sosyal destek sistemlerini kullanarak baş etmeye çalıştıklarını ve travmanın yıkıcı etkilerini azaltmak için ilaç kullanımına yöneldiklerini belirtmişlerdir. Yaşadıkları travma deneyimlerinden sonra öğrenerek güçlendiklerini ve travma sonrası büyüme yaşadıklarını belirtmişlerdir. Ruh sağlığı profesyonellerinin toplumsal travmalar karşısında olumsuz etkilenmemesi adına etkin baş etme ve güçlenme noktasında desteklenmeleri ruh sağlıkları ve mesleki profesyonellikleri üzerinde koruyucu etki yapabilir.
... First, trauma can result not only from being the victim of a trauma oneself (i.e. 'primary trauma'), but also from indirect or 'vicarious' exposure: observing, interacting and empathising with traumatised others (McCann and Pearlman 1990). Second, trauma can be a response to the cumulative impact of stressors, rather than to a single stressor (Kahn 1963). ...
This article explores ways that trauma can come into tension with anthropological methods, specifically during fieldwork. It is based on findings from a survey conducted among anthropologists in 2023, which sought to understand preparation for fieldwork, including personal preparation, formal support and the ethics process; fieldwork experiences, including forms of trauma exposure and other aspects of context which may have heightened vulnerability or reactivity to traumatic stressors; researcher responses to accumulated distress of fieldwork; and finally, how supervisory relationships and institutional culture shape and influence researchers’ experience. We suggest that by looking at fieldwork experiences through the lens of trauma, we can achieve a rich and specific understanding of the extent to which this is an issue within the discipline. Doing so can enable us to think constructively about moving towards a trauma-informed anthropology. Key Words: Fieldwork; trauma exposure; vicarious trauma; training; supervision; institutional culture
... Domestic violence counselors with trauma histories were more likely to experience vicarious (work related) trauma [43,44] which both increased staff turnover and decreased productivity [45]. Notably, vicarious trauma has been found to alter provider world view and beliefs about themselves and their patients [46]. This suggests that vicarious trauma is likely critical to recognizing the need for change and being open to it, as suggested by one study finding that vicarious trauma among SUDtx staff was associated with lower patient empathy, patient-centeredness and a resistance to practice change [47]. ...
Background
U.S. policy intervention to increase methadone treatment accommodations during COVID did not result in national adoption of the new patient-centered treatment practices. Staff-level interventions may facilitate adoption of these treatment practices, but this will depend upon knowledge about staff level characteristics and beliefs. Currently, the role of clinic staff characteristics, beliefs about patient-centeredness, and perceptions about the need for treatment practice change is unknown. This study explored the relationship between opioid treatment program staff characteristics, work roles and staff beliefs to identify opportunities for future staff-level treatment practice change interventions.
Methods
Staff of three Arizona opioid treatment programs were surveyed (n = 40) from April 11–22, 2023 using a hybrid online survey method. The 161 survey items required less than 30 min to complete. Pearson point biserial correlation coefficients assessed the covariation between staff beliefs, staff characteristics and staff work roles. Perception of the clinic as person-centered was a potential proxy indicator for staff awareness of discontinuity between the clinic’s person-centeredness and person-centered approaches to methadone treatment.
Results
Among staff, 47.5% reported lived substance use disorder experience and 27.5% reported lived opioid use disorder experience. Most staff (70%) held at least 1 prior clinic role at the current clinic and 5% had had more than 4 prior roles. Rotation was observed with roles that did not require licensure or degrees. Staff with lived experience with substance use disorder or opioid use disorder treatment reported having more prior roles at the clinic than those without such experience. Abstinence-oriented views were significantly associated with reporting vicarious (work related) trauma symptoms. Those who rated the clinic as significantly more person-centered were staff with lived substance use disorder experience who also held abstinence-oriented views, staff with trauma exposure, and staff with lived opioid use disorder treatment experience who held harm reduction beliefs. In contrast, staff without substance use disorder experience who held harm reduction beliefs perceived the clinic as less person-centered.
Conclusions
Staff beliefs, personal and work characteristics are likely factors in the recognition of need for clinic practice change. How these characteristics function in a clinic culture may also be influenced by clinic staffing patterns. A patient-to-provider pipeline with role cycling was observed and this staffing pattern may also influence shared beliefs of trauma-informed care or clinic person-centeredness. Vicarious trauma may also be an important factor. Larger studies should examine these relationships further to understand mechanisms associated with recognition of need for clinic practice change in order to inform staff-level interventions to increase opioid treatment program patient-centeredness.
... Secondary traumatization can cause professionals to have invasive and disturbing cognitions of their clients' traumatic experiences, which can alter their own perspectives on the world and themselves, causing feelings of incomprehension and confusion (McCann & Pearlman, 1990;Neumann & Gamble, 1995), as was described by the therapists in this study. Park's (2010) integrated meaning-making model holds that distress ensues when our assumptions about our lives, ourselves, and the world are contradicted by a stressful life event or adversity. ...
With the prevalence of sexual violence in most countries and its increase in Sweden, it is important to understand the development of secondary traumatic reactions among professionals who work with sexually violated clients. The aim of this study was to describe the meaning of therapists’ personal experiences when treating survivors of sexual violence. We conducted a qualitative interview study of therapists in Sweden (N = 11) using thematic analysis and adding a phenomenological openess towards the phenomenon. The participants were all women, with different professional backgrounds and with further education in areas such as psychotherapy, sexology, trauma treatment, and forensic nursing. The essential meaning of their work could be described as a continuum where therapists were seeking balance between contradictory experiences, further described in four themes. They experienced their work as highly meaningful, and the use of self-care strategies helped to maintain protective boundaries. However, the incomprehensible violence they were indirectly exposed to, challenged their protective boundaries, thus causing negative reactions for the therapists. Increased understanding of the impact of work on therapists’ professional and private lives is crucial, and the need for therapists to have a model or framework of meaning and explanation for sexual violence that ties contradictory experiences together.
... In the most recent iteration of the DSM, DSM-5-TR, the notion of trauma exposure was extended to capture individuals who may demonstrate all of the criteria of PTSD but who learned, rather than experienced, the traumatic event through other channels. For instance, PTSD symptomology has been noted among typists who had transcribed the transcripts of adult survivors of sexual abuse (Wilkes et al., 2015), emergency dispatch workers (Pierce & Lilly, 2012;Smith et al., 2019), child exploitation investigators (Bourke & Craun, 2014;Burns et al., 2008), interpreters (Lai & Heydon, 2015) and clinicians working with traumatized populations (Figley, 2013;McCann & Pearlman, 1990). This "vicarious" trauma is perhaps the first medically recognized trauma experience wherein the traumatized individual was not present in some form during the actual traumatic event. ...
Recognition is growing for the need to support healing at both individual and community levels in situations of mass trauma exposure. Presently, many gold-standard individual-level healing practices exist; however, community-level interventions are less common and their efficacy is uncertain. This systematic review examined the current research efforts regarding collective trauma interventions. In accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Framework, Cochrane Library, PsycInfo, PubMed, and Scopus databases were searched for articles published on “collective trauma” OR “mass trauma” OR “social trauma” OR “traumatized societies” AND “intervention” OR “treatment” OR “healing” (December 2023) revealing 284 articles. Title and abstract screening, by two reviewers, resulted in 14 articles being retained for this review. Studies of all designs were included if they examined any form of intervention within the context of multiperson trauma exposure. A standardized coding process was used to extract data on key features, including quality review using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Findings were tabulated and presented in a narrative synthesis. The 14 retained studies, sourced from peer-reviewed journals, explored interventions stated to target collective trauma suffering. They employed different research methodologies, including ethnographic, survey-based quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches to understand collective trauma interventions using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods designs. While these studies offer valuable insights into collective trauma interventions, they would generally be considered to be of low research quality. Future efforts must focus on clearly defining the construct of collective trauma, ongoing development of collective trauma interventions, and creating evaluation protocols that balance research rigor with real-world practice constraints.
... Counsellors typically work with multiple victims and forms of trauma over a significant period of time, frequently spanning the life of their career. McCann and Pearlman (1990) coined the term vicarious traumatisation to describe the cumulative effects upon a counsellor from helping clients work through their trauma. Arvay (2001) believed that the primary difference between vicarious traumatisation and secondary traumatic stress was more theoretical and that they both referred to the same phenomenon. ...
One hundred and twenty-nine New Zealand counsellors were surveyed in relation to secondary traumatic stress, burnout, compassion satisfaction, resilience, social support, degree of exposure to trauma, and personal history of trauma. Statistical analyses established the prevalence of secondary traumatic stress, burnout, and compassion satisfaction. The relationships between risk of secondary traumatic stress and exposure to others' trauma, personal trauma history, burnout, compassion satisfaction, resilience, and social support levels were explored. Results established a prevalence of 21.7% for high risk of secondary traumatic stress, 24.8% for high risk of burnout, and 21.7% for high potential for compassion satisfaction in this sample. Statistically significant relationships were found between exposure and secondary traumatic stress, between burnout and secondary traumatic stress, and between resilience and secondary traumatic stress. These results are discussed in relation to counsellors' secondary exposure to trauma when working with clients who have been traumatised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of New Zealand Journal of Counselling is the property of New Zealand Association of Counsellors and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
... The risk to develop symptoms of secondary traumatic stress can increase not only by the quantity of reports of traumatic events but also by the way in which the experience is narrated [9,10]. Similar concepts that overlap with secondary traumatic stress are compassion fatigue that is characterized by feelings of helplessness, psychological and emotional exhaustions [11], and vicarious traumatization that includes a permanent change in cognitive schemas and beliefs [12]. To take this into account, the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder have been adapted in the DSM-V: in the recent version, "experiencing repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of the traumatic event(s)" is also sufficient as an A-criterion [13]. ...
Background
By the end of 2022, more than 100 million people worldwide fled their homes. Before, during and after their flight, refugees have high risk of experiencing traumatic events. Accordingly, around every third refugee is affected by posttraumatic stress disorder. For adequate mental health care, the service of interpreters is often urgently needed to overcome existing language barriers. However, repeated exposure with details of traumatic narratives, as experienced by interpreters, can be burdensome and can lead to trauma sequela symptoms in terms of secondary traumatic stress. Only few studies have examined the treatment of secondary traumatic stress to date. Based on the recommendations for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder with confrontational methods, this study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) intervention in a sample of interpreters working in refugee care suffering from secondary traumatic stress symptoms.
Methods
To evaluate the effectiveness of an EMDR intervention for the treatment of secondary traumatic stress symptoms, a quasi-randomized controlled trial using a waiting group design will be performed. Participants will be treated with a maximum of 6 sessions based on EMDR standard protocol. Primary outcome is the symptom load of secondary traumatic stress, assessed with the Questionnaire for Secondary Traumatization, while secondary outcomes comprise further symptom complexes such as PTSD due to self-experienced traumatic events, depression, anxiety, and somatization as well as quality of life, quality of professional life, and psychological wellbeing that will be assessed with the PDS, PHQ-9, GAD-7, SSD-12, SF-12, PROQOL-5, and WHO-5, respectively.
Discussion
Our primary interest is to determine the efficacy of an EMDR intervention in interpreters affected by secondary traumatic stress, especially how many sessions are needed for significant symptom reduction. Change of associated symptom complexes and quality of life will be investigated. Reprocessing one’s own stressful experiences may also contribute to this, which is not the focus of the treatment but relevant to the EMDR protocol. This study aims to assess if EMDR could be an acceptable, effective, and time-efficient method for reducing work-related secondary traumatization.
Trial registration
German Clinical Trials Register, DRKS00032092, registered 16 June 2023.
... 4 Vicarious trauma involves profound and sometimes permanent changes to professionals' cognitive schemas and core beliefs about themselves, others, and the world, that occur as a result of exposure to graphic and/or traumatic material relating to their clients' experiences. 5,6 Conceptually, burnout plus secondary trauma equals compassion fatigue. While burnout typically stems from institutional stressors, secondary trauma directly results from the traumatic content they encounter; and when unmitigated, secondary trauma can lead to vicarious trauma. ...
Forensic interviewing professionals, who regularly engage with children and youth reporting traumatic experiences, are particularly susceptible to secondary traumatic stress (STS) and compassion fatigue (CF). This conceptual article delves into the occupational hazards associated with forensic interviewing, emphasizing the inevitability of STS and CF due to frequent exposure to harrowing accounts of abuse. The article underscores the importance of recognizing these phenomena and differentiating them from burnout—a critical distinction that guides appropriate interventions. Utilizing the "Four Quadrants of Self-Preservation," a trauma- informed framework, the article offers practical strategies for forensic interviewers to mitigate the impacts of STS and CF. This approach promotes resilience through intentional self-care practices across four stages of secondary trauma exposure: before, during, immediately after, and ongoing post-exposure to traumatic material. The article advocates for organizational support in implementing these strategies, emphasizing the ethical imperative to safeguard the well-being of forensic interviewers. The findings suggest that addressing STS and CF not only enhances the personal resilience of professionals but also improves client outcomes, by reducing the likelihood of turnover and professional errors. This article contributes to the growing body of literature calling for trauma-informed practices in forensic settings, highlighting the need for continued research and organizational commitment to support these professionals.
... This is often triggering for annotators who have first-hand experiences with such harm, and it is exhausting and depressing even for those who have somewhat less painful experience. The situation is somewhat analogous to content moderation, in which repeated exposure to disturbing content causes secondary traumatization (McCann and Pearlman, 1990) for moderators, often leading to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Steiger et al., 2021). This annotation is similar to volunteer moderation of identityspecific online communities, such as those studied by Dosono and Semaan (2019), who found that moderation constitutes significant emotional labor and often leads to burnout. ...
... Within this research, vicarious trauma is defined as an individual's response to another individual's trauma, involving intense fear, horror, and helplessness (Mailloux, 2014), whereas compassion fatigue is increased physical and mental fatigue that results from empathetic listening to client stress (Cuartero & Campos-Vidal, 2019). McCann and Pearlman (1990) posited that vicarious trauma occurs when service providers experience images and emotions associated with the painful, traumatic memories shared by survivors as part of their empathic engagement and eventually internalize these as part of their own memory. This leads to long-term consequences, including an alteration in worldview and behavioral, affective, and emotional responses (Molnar et al., 2017). ...
Human trafficking is a growing public health crisis, one that is estimated to have affected at least 40.3 million people worldwide. Existing literature focuses on the lack of proficiency in identifying victims of trafficking by professionals in multiple frontline services, with a lack of focus on the psychological cost, to individual service providers, of providing aftercare to one of society’s most vulnerable populations. This aftercare requires complex support delivered by specialist services that are routinely underfunded. Although existing research focuses on support and burnout in professionals within related settings, such as social workers and health-care providers, little focus has been given to the impact of supporting survivors of human trafficking. The current study conducted semistructured interviews with nine female volunteers at an antitrafficking charity to explore the effects of providing support to survivors of human trafficking. Participants held a variety of roles within the charity (e.g., counselor, senior caseworker, voluntary caseworker, local coordinator, team administrator, or community facilitator). A thematic analysis identified two main themes, with associated subthemes: first, the impact of working with survivors (burnout and vicarious trauma, privilege and awareness) and, following on from this, the methods used to manage this impact (boundaries, counseling, supervision, and team support). These findings provide important insight into the effects that supporting survivors of human trafficking have on service providers and highlight that there is still significant work to do in terms of providing appropriate support to those working with this extremely vulnerable population.
... Due to the sometimes detailed and graphic descriptions of crises and violence contained in ERPO case files, there was a risk that RAs would experience secondary trauma through reading them. Secondary trauma, also called vicarious trauma, are the effects of indirect exposure to trauma (McCann and Pearlman 1990). For example, researchers have reported experiencing physical and emotional symptoms (e.g., sleeplessness, an increased awareness of safety) when conducting research on violence and suicide (Mckenzie et al. 2017;Campbell 2002). ...
Background
Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) are civil court orders that prohibit firearm purchase and possession when someone is behaving dangerously and is at risk of harming themselves and/or others. As of June 2024, ERPOs are available in 21 states and the District of Columbia to prevent firearm violence. This paper describes the design and protocol of a six-state study of ERPO use.
Methods
The six states included are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, and Washington. During the 3-year project period (2020–2023), ERPO case files were obtained through public records requests or through agreements with agencies with access to these data in each state. A team of over four dozen research assistants from seven institutions coded 6628 ERPO cases, abstracting 80 variables per case under domains related to respondent characteristics, events and behaviors leading to ERPO petitions, petitioner types, and court outcomes. Research assistants received didactic training through an online learning management system that included virtual training modules, quizzes, practice coding exercises, and two virtual synchronous sessions. A protocol for gaining strong interrater reliability was used. Research assistants also learned strategies for reducing the risk of experiencing secondary trauma through the coding process, identifying its occurrence, and obtaining help.
Discussion
Addressing firearm violence in the U.S. is a priority. Understanding ERPO use in these six states can inform implementation planning and ERPO uptake, including promising opportunities to enhance safety and prevent firearm-related injuries and deaths. By publishing this protocol, we offer detailed insight into the methods underlying the papers published from these data, and the process of managing data abstraction from ERPO case files across the multi-state and multi-institution teams involved. Such information may also inform future analyses of this data, and future replication efforts.
Registration
This protocol is registered on Open Science Framework ( https://osf.io/kv4fc/ ).
Background
In their care of terminally ill patients, palliative care physicians and oncologists are increasingly predisposed to physical and emotional exhaustion, or compassion fatigue (CF). Challenges faced by physicians include complex care needs; changing practice demands, and sociocultural contextual factors. Efforts to better understand CF have, however, been limited. We propose a systematic scoping review (SSR) to determine “What is known about theories of CF in physicians?”.
Methods
Guided by the PRISMA-based Systematic Evidence-based Approach (SEBA) methodology, our SSR comprised searches for articles published between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2023 on MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Wiley, CINAHL and Google Scholar databases. Both thematic and content analyses were carried out.
Results
Of the 10 505 titles identified, 80 articles were included. 15 current theories of CF were evaluated, leading to two key domains: theories of CF and theories related to the costs of caring. Overall, theories of CF evolved from Figley’s model with gradual encompassing of moral distress, vicarious trauma and burnout, alongside the inclusion of individual characteristics, decisioning and nous in later theories.
Conclusion
CF was found to be part of a wider cost of caring that links clinical experiences with self-concepts of personhood and identity. The Ring Theory of Personhood has been able to shed light on how physicians will respond to such experiences and is key to guiding physician support and the creation of nurturing working environments.
This article employs narrative inquiry and counter-storytelling as methodological and analytical tools to unpack the collective experiences of racially minoritized student affairs practitioners and faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors’ narratives underscore factors that impeded their success during the pandemic and the nuances of practitioner and faculty fatigue above and beyond the greater responsibilities often placed on racially minoritized employees, resulting in compromised well-being. As the authors reconcile their experiences, they also unpack their feelings of guilt over their clear complicity as they continue to exist and lead in a system they often resent. In conversation with existing literature, the authors’ narratives inform a set of recommendations for human resource practices higher education that call for a shift in responsibility for the well-being of racially minoritized practitioners and faculty in higher education institutions.
The understanding of responses to traumatic events has been greatly influenced by the introduction of the diagnosis of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this paper we review the initial versions of the diagnostic criteria for this condition and the associated epidemiological findings, including sociocultural differences. We consider evidence for post‐traumatic reactions occurring in multiple contexts not previously defined as traumatic, and the implications that these observations have for the diagnosis. More recent developments such as the DSM‐5 dissociative subtype and the ICD‐11 diagnosis of complex PTSD are reviewed, adding to evidence that there are several distinct PTSD phenotypes. We describe the psychological foundations of PTSD, involving disturbances to memory as well as to identity. A broader focus on identity may be able to accommodate group and communal influences on the experience of trauma and PTSD, as well as the impact of resource loss. We then summarize current evidence concerning the biological foundations of PTSD, with a particular focus on genetic and neuroimaging studies. Whereas progress in prevention has been disappointing, there is now an extensive evidence supporting the efficacy of a variety of psychological treatments for established PTSD, including trauma‐focused interventions – such as trauma‐focused cognitive behavior therapy (TF‐CBT) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) – and non‐trauma‐focused therapies, which also include some emerging identity‐based approaches such as present‐centered and compassion‐focused therapies. Additionally, there are promising interventions that are neither psychological nor pharmacological, or that combine a pharmacological and a psychological approach, such as 3,4‐methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)‐assisted psychotherapy. We review advances in the priority areas of adapting interventions in resource‐limited settings and across cultural contexts, and of community‐based approaches. We conclude by identifying future directions for work on trauma and mental health.
Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, set in the background of Holocaust, narrates the life of ordinary Germans and Jews through an omniscient narrator-Death. The concept of trauma and memory have been examined through the characters-Leisel Meminger and Max Vandenburg but the narrator's psyche is not given much scholastic attention. This paper attempts to study the psyche of the narrator (Death) through the theoretical lens of trauma studies. The research paper attempts to study the vicarious trauma encountered by the supernatural being, Death. Death, a soul collecting entity, remembers people through colours and this paper attempts to decode the connection between Death's colour theory and his memory of people. The study seeks to explore the coping mechanisms of the supernatural being, Death in the context of literary witnessing and Death's role as an observer and participant adding depths to the trauma.
Bu kapsamlı kitap; çocuklara yönelik istismar ve ihmali anlamak, tanımlamak ve bu ciddi sorunla başa çıkmak için temel bir kaynak olarak hazırlanmıştır. Her biri alanında uzman akademisyenler ve profesyoneller tarafından kaleme alınan bölümler, çocuk istismarının tarihinden fiziksel, duygusal, cinsel ve çevrim içi istismar türlerine kadar geniş bir yelpazede konuları ele almaktadır. Kitap, hem Türkiye'de hem de dünyada çocuk istismarının mevcut durumunu ve yasal düzenlemelerini inceleyerek bu alanda farkındalık yaratmayı ve çözüm önerileri sunmayı amaçlamaktadır. Ayrıca istismar mağduru çocuklarla nasıl etkili bir şekilde iletişim kurulacağı, tedavi ve rehabilitasyon süreçleri ile önleme stratejileri gibi pratik bilgiler de sunmaktadır. Çocuk istismarına karşı koruma sağlamaya yönelik mevzuat, tedavi yöntemleri ve profesyonellerin yaşadığı ikincil travma gibi konularla da zenginleştirilen bu eser, hem akademik dünyaya hem de sahada çalışan uzmanlara değerli bir rehber niteliğindedir. Çocuk istismarının önlenmesi ve çocukların korunması için atılması gereken adımları daha iyi anlamak isteyen herkes için vazgeçilmez bir kaynaktır.
Diagnosis of PTSD. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) refers to long running disturbances in emotion, cognition, and behavior owing to having encountered frightening, disruptive, and often life-threatening experiences. These traumatic experiences are relived in such a way that the past, even a past that took place decades ago, is ever present. Common fear reactions often abate within brief periods of time. In contrast, PTSD is enduring and can sometimes last for as long as one lives. It is dysregulating across a wide variety of domains of functioning. PTSD can cause extreme fear reactions to common stressors; it can cause disruptions in one's memory and thinking process; it can cause startle reactions and sympathetic nervous system over-activation; can negatively alter one's mood; diminish one's sense of self; cause sleeplessness and nightmares, disrupt relationships, and cause an enduring distrust of the environment. To help in developing a perspective on PTSD, it is important to note that most people who encounter traumatic events do not develop PTSD.
La práctica del periodismo implica una alta exposición a situaciones de
alto impacto emocional y sus trabajadores, como lo indican diversos estudios,
no han sido ni formados ni entrenados para afrontar estos desafíos.
Autores como Feinstein et al., (2002, 2016) han profundizado en los
alcances del trauma en periodistas y confirman que dicha profesión se ha
convertido en una práctica de riesgo resultado de la cobertura de tragedias
(accidentes, pandemias, desastres climáticos, vulneración de derechos,
terrorismo). Varios estudios, demuestran que los periodistas suelen
ocupar la llamada línea de fuego o están al mismo nivel que el personal
de emergencias -policía, bomberos, personal de ambulancias y médicos
de emergencia- (Bos et al., 2004); no obstante, la diferencia reside en que
los periodistas son los únicos que no reciben formación para afrontar estos
escenarios que, en ocasiones, además de generar un alto nivel de tensión
pueden llevar a situaciones de estrés post traumático.
Successful implementation of trauma-informed care is an ongoing process and must occur across many levels, including at the clinic and/or organizational level. Trauma-informed organizations acknowledge the principles of safety, trust, collaboration, choice, peer support, and sociocultural issues and focus on the relationships between staff, patients/clients, and organizations. Current research, theory, and practice from the broader literature on trauma-informed care can guide administrators and staff who work within reproductive endocrinology and infertility settings to implement trauma-informed care. The clinic and/or organization’s mission and vision, policies, and procedures should be developed with consideration for trauma-informed care. Additional factors to consider include building and supporting the staff team, encouraging health and well-being among patients/clients and staff alike, and creating a physical environment that promotes both physical and psychological safety. Administrators should ensure ongoing training on both trauma-informed care and vicarious trauma-informed care for all staff. Administrators should also lead efforts ensuring that the clinic is appropriately acknowledging, preventing, and addressing vicarious trauma experienced by staff.
This chapter explores the complex dynamics of trauma within the therapeutic relationship. It discusses how traumatic experiences, especially those rooted in childhood, influence the patient’s attachment style and their interactions with therapists. The chapter highlights the challenges therapists face when dealing with patients who exhibit dissociation, hyperarousal, or hypoarousal due to trauma. It emphasises the importance of the therapist’s role in maintaining a stable and secure environment to help patients regulate their emotions and integrate their traumatic experiences. Additionally, the chapter underscores the need for therapists to be aware of their own responses and the potential for vicarious trauma, advocating for self-care and continuous professional development.
Humanitarian agencies aid millions of people in need, and global mental health (GMH) professionals play an increasingly important role in supporting and advancing the humanitarian agenda.
When responding to humanitarian crises, mental health (MH) providers join a larger system of multidisciplinary humanitarian action united by a common goal of saving lives and alleviating suffering. In contrast to individual and spontaneous acts of kindness, humanitarian work is an organized and coordinated helping activity that brings together international and local organizations and actors.
The chapter offers insight into the evolutionary, spiritual, and cultural roots of helping behavior. It orients MH professionals to the history, theory, and practice of humanitarianism, as well as the contemporary trends and challenges that humanitarian action faces.
Over the past several decades, the humanitarian sector has grown, diversified, and become an industry striding toward improving the effectiveness of aid delivery, and increasing professionalization and accountability. Concerns over the well-being of aid workers, controversies surrounding military humanitarians, and the politicization and misuse of humanitarian aid demonstrate the complexity of the changing humanitarian landscape.
Amid reports of unethical practices committed by international aid workers, the international humanitarian community developed regulations and asserted commitment to humanitarian principles, professional integrity, and ethical standards.
Background
Psychotherapists, while treating clients with a history of traumatic experiences, are exposed to vicarious trauma, which affects their mental health as well as their quality of caregiving. The present research tries to gain an insight into the lived experiences of psychotherapists while treating clients with traumatic experiences.
Methods
In-depth individual interviews were conducted with five psychotherapists (two males and three females) with a minimum duration of continuous professional practice of 3.5 years and all of them above 30 years of age. The interviews were conducted for 30–45 minutes and recorded after taking informed consent from the participants. The data was analyzed and interpreted using the interpretative phenomenological analysis. Investigator triangulation was done to ensure the trustworthiness of the research.
Results
The analysis reveals that the participants have experienced vicarious trauma from their therapeutic interaction with their clients on their traumatic issues, particularly during the initial phases of their career as a psychotherapist. Some of them feel that such experiences, despite being distressing, have also empowered them psychologically. The participants have reported using constructive coping strategies to deal with such vicarious trauma, such as emotional distancing, journaling, seeking personal therapy and social support, reading, physical exercise, and self-care activities.
Afetler sonrası yakınlarını ya da mallarını kaybeden ve travmatize olan bireyler için psikososyal desteğin çok önemli olduğu bilinmektedir. Ruh sağlığı uzmanlarının bu konudaki deneyimleri, afet sonrası psikososyal yardımın daha etkili olabilmesi için oldukça önemli görülmektedir. Bu araştırmanın amacı ruh sağlığı uzmanlarının 6 Şubat depremleri sonrası sahadaki deneyimlerinin ortaya çıkarılmasıdır. Araştırma, nitel yaklaşımda ve olgubilim deseninde tasarlanmıştır. Katılımcıların hepsi 6 Şubat depremlerinden sonra psikososyal hizmet vermek için bölgeye gönüllü gitmiştir. Yetişkin 7 katılımcı ile yapılan nitel görüşmelerin tematik analizi sonucunda belirlenen iki tema şunlardır: “ kişisel gelişim ” ve “ mesleki gelişim ”. Elde edilen bulgular çerçevesinde böyle bir kriz sonrası psikososyal yardım sunacak olan profesyonellere bazı öneriler sunulmuştur.
Participation in, and attendance at, court often positions people amid a charged emotional environment, where the evidence frequently involves distressing accounts and the stakes of decision-making are high. Research has explored the impact of this environment on various court protagonists. What this research has failed to consider in detail, however, are the ways in which such vectors of emotional reaction, containment and contagion interact and flow across the criminal court space: yielding affective environments in which emotion is not a commodity held (or denied) by one person, but a force that permeates and seeps into the spaces of justice. In this article, we set out the case for why such an understanding is necessary and instructive.
Describes experiments in which happy or sad moods were induced in Ss by hypnotic suggestion to investigate the influence of emotions on memory and thinking. Results show that (a) Ss exhibited mood-state-dependent memory in recall of word lists, personal experiences recorded in a daily diary, and childhood experiences; (b) Ss recalled a greater percentage of those experiences that were affectively congruent with the mood they were in during recall; (c) emotion powerfully influenced such cognitive processes as free associations, imaginative fantasies, social perceptions, and snap judgments about others' personalities; (d) when the feeling-tone of a narrative agreed with the reader's emotion, the salience and memorability of events in that narrative were increased. An associative network theory is proposed to account for these results. In this theory, an emotion serves as a memory unit that can enter into associations with coincident events. Activation of this emotion unit aids retrieval of events associated with it; it also primes emotional themata for use in free association, fantasies, and perceptual categorization. (54 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
264 therapists from a state in the midwestern US were surveyed to (1) confirm and clarify sources of stress for psychotherapists that originate in client sessions and the professional role and (2) explore certain irrational beliefs that therapists may hold and that may contribute to their own stress. Ss were asked to complete a questionnaire that assessed background information and therapist beliefs and that contained a 36-item therapist stress scale. Irrational beliefs (e.g., that one should operate at peak efficiency and competence with all clients at all times) are examined. Suicidal ideation, aggression/hostility, premature terminating, agitated anxiety, and apathy/depression were held to be the most stressful client behaviors, while crying, absence of gratitude, and negative community stereotypes were the least stressful. Group differences in stress are described, and implications for training programs and for more refined research endeavors are discussed. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Conducted 2-hr semistructured interviews with a heterogeneous group of 60 psychotherapists to investigate their experiences of therapeutic practice. According to the Ss, professional satisfaction derives from the ability to promote a helpful therapeutic relationship; dissatisfaction stems primarily from lack of therapeutic success; and burnout is primarily a consequence of the nonreciprocated attentiveness, giving, and responsibility demanded by the therapeutic relationship. Other reasons for burnout included overwork, isolation, and discouragement as a function of the slow pace of the work. Most Ss felt that support systems were essential to resisting burnout. The data suggest that although therapists expect their work to be difficult and even stressful, they also expect their efforts to be rewarding. Burnout is not only psychologically debilitating to therapists, it also critically impairs the delivery of mental health services. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Contends that psychological mindedness—thinking about motives, distortions, and inner experiences of others—is a central aspect of psychotherapists' professional and personal lives. Psychological mindedness is traced in the early life of the therapist and throughout his/her professional training. Psychological mindedness may be inappropriate to personal and social relations, and a lack of affectivity and spontaneity in therapy may result from an overemphasis on its intellectual component. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Historically, research in the area of coping has been based on subjective data-gathering techniques and has dealt with specific life crises or the phenomenon of burnout. Many researchers concluded that client contact is the basis of burnout; however, little or no research has dealt solely with the client-therapist interaction. The purpose of this study was to address this interaction. The coping instrument used in this study consisted of selected coping scales of Folkman and Lazarus and of Prochaska and DiClemente, as well as those that we constructed. We identified six coping strategies that psychotherapists use to deal with the stress that they experience in working with difficult clients. Analyses also revealed that certain coping strategies were related to perceived success. By ascertaining coping strategies used by psychotherapists who perceive themselves as successful, both practitioner and researcher can gain a better understanding of how therapists cope with client-generated stress.
Many prominent theorists have argued that accurate perceptions of the self, the world, and the future are essential for mental health. Yet considerable research evidence suggests that overly positive self-evaluations, exaggerated perceptions of control or mastery, and unrealistic optimism are characteristic of normal human thought. Moreover, these illusions appear to promote other criteria of mental health, including the ability to care about others, the ability to be happy or contented, and the ability to engage in productive and creative work. These strategies may succeed, in large part, because both the social world and cognitive-processing mechanisms impose filters on incoming information that distort it in a positive direction; negative information may be isolated and represented in as unthreatening a manner as possible. These positive illusions may be especially useful when an individual receives negative feedback or is otherwise threatened and may be especially adaptive under these circumstances.
Offspring of Holocaust survivors are found to experience their parents as emotionally detached, and therefore to cling dependently. Fear relating to control of hostile impulses also contributes to the dependency. Parents who have survived the Holocaust may regard their children's individuation as another familial loss. Implications for therapeutic work with this population are considered.
Clinicians have gained considerable knowledge about psychopathology and treatment but this knowledge is poorly systematized and hard to transmit. One way to organize clinical knowledge is to circumscribe a limited area and describe within it the interactions between personality dispositions, states of disorder, and treatment techniques.
This report models such an approach by limiting disorder to stress response syndromes, personality to obsessional and hysterical neurotic styles, and treatment to focal dynamic psychotherapy. Within this domain, an information processing approach to working through conflicted ideas and feeling is developed. The result is a series of assertions about observable behavior and nuances of technique. Since these assertions are localized conceptually, they can be checked, revised, refuted, compared, or extended into other disorders, dispositions, and treatments.
Reviews the book, Trauma and Its Wake: The Study and Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by Charles R. Figley (1985). This book consists of three sections: "Introduction and Conceptualization," "Recent Research Findings," and "Recent Treatment Innovations." This book is stimulating, comprehensive, and reflective of the "state of the art" in the area of stress-strain research. The indices are useful and the two appendices (one on the "Patient Information Form" and the other an outline for the "Structured Interview" for individuals suffering from PTSD) can be helpful to researchers who wish to collect data that can be standardized in form and compared with data from other studies. The book is recommended to investigators, clinicians, and educators who wish to update their information in this area of research that will become even more important now that neuroscience, immunology, and endocrinology further elaborate what we have heretofore speculated about without substantive biological data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
The topics of victimization and traumatic stress have become focal issues within the last two decades. This article synthesizes theoretical and empirical findings about psychological responses to traumatization across survivors of rape, childhood sexual or physical abuse, domestic violence, crime, disasters, and the Vietnam war. Five major categories of response, emotional, cognitive, biological, behavioral, and interpersonal, are described. Based on these findings, the authors present a new theoretical model for understanding individual variations in victim responses. In this model, they propose a complex relation among traumatic experiences, cognitive schemas within the areas of safety, trust, power, esteem, and intimacy, and psychological adaptation. Implications for assessment, treatment intervention, and further research within the area of traumatic stress are discussed.
The "cognitive revolution "in psychology is reviewed from historical, philosophical, and theoretical perspectives. There has been substantial evolution and differentiation among cognitive psychotherapies, of which there are at least 20 distinct modern varieties. It is argued that these various cognitive approaches reflect two fundamental traditions in philosophy and psychological theory-rationalism and constructivism. Rationalist cognitive therapies are exemplified by Albert Ellis's rational-emotive therapy and view counseling as technical consultation in rational thinking and "reality contact. "Rationalist counselors assume that explicit thought processes are the optimal focus of intervention. Constructivist cognitive therapies challenge reductionistic accounts of the relationships among thought, feeling, and action. As reflected in George Kelly's personal construct approach and the contemporary works of Guidano, Ivey, Joyce Moniz, and Mahoney, constructivist therapies emphasize proactive processes in adaptation. They also acknowledge the importance of emotional attachments, affective cycles of disorganization, and self-organizing processes in individual psychological development. Key differences between rationalist and constructivist approaches are outlined at philosophical, theoretical, and practical levels. It is concluded that constructivist theories represent a major and promising emergence in late-twentieth-century psychology.
For most who practice it, psychotherapy is a fulfilling and rewarding profession. For others, however, the physical and psychic isolation, along with other factors, take a toll. "The Personal Life of the Psychotherapist" is an exhaustive summary of recent research and findings on the effect of psychotherapy on the professionals who practice it. It is also a guide to self-care for psychotherapists who wish to enjoy a long, satisfying career.
"The Personal Life of the Psychotherapist" describes the factors leading to the career choice of psychotherapy and the characteristics that determine whether a person is suitable for this career, by supplying data on the incidence, etiology, development, prevention, and treatment of work-related dysfunction, "The Personal Life of the Psychotherapist" helps the practitioner maximize the benefits associated with his or her career, while minimizing or eliminating the hazards and liabilities in the field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The patterns and parameters of human change processes remain one of the oldest and most intriguing themes of thoughtful inquiry. Our libraries are filled with an inseparable mixture of fictional and nonfictional expressions and analyses of change and stability in human lives. And throughout these writings are pervasive assumptions about human nature, epistemology, and certain tacit universals of experience and existence (Durant & Durant, 1970; Foucault, 1970; Friedman, 1967, 1974; Polanyi, 1966; Russell, 1945). The persistence of our quest for knowledge—and especially knowledge about ourselves—is probably a reflection of formidable inclinations toward both meaning and power. Francis Bacon observed that “knowledge is power.” The nature of that power was stated more explicitly in the ancient Chinese volume, the I Ching or Book of Changes (Wilhelm & Baynes, 1950, p. 243):
If we know the laws of change, we can precalculate in regard to it, and freedom of action thereupon becomes possible.
model describes the relation among life experiences, cognitive schemata . . . and their associated emotions, and psychological functioning
focus on the unique meaning of the event for the survivor, as this shapes differential responses to childhood sexual abuse
principles of assessment and treatment
case examples (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
[examine] the relation of Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory to symptoms of PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]
review two basic features of the theory in greater detail / one concerns the nature of the preconscious and . . . the experiential conceptual system, and the other concerns the functions of a personal theory of reality and the cognitions associated with them (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The cumulative effect of scholarly and professional activities associated with the concept of traumatic stress suggests, it is noted here, that a new field of study is emerging. The paper first defines traumatic stress and a field of study. It is noted here that eight factors are necessary to quality as a field of study. The factors noted include: a history, professional organizations, publications, theory, measurement, research methodology, intervention technology, and actions affecting policy and the judicial system. These factors are considered separately. The final section discusses the new frontiers of this emerging field. A three-dimensional model is presented that depicts the finite number of directions for building a scientific literature in traumatic stress studies. The paper concludes with an invitation to readers to add to this literature by contribution to theJournal of Traumatic Stress.
This work presents a systematic analysis of the psychological phenomena associated with the concept of mental representations - also referred to as cognitive or internal representations. A major restatement of a theory the author of this book first developed in his 1971 book (Imagery and Verbal Processes), this book covers phenomena from the earlier period that remain relevant today but emphasizes cognitive problems and paradigms that have since emerged more fully. It proposes that performance in memory and other cognitive tasks is mediated not only by linguistic processes but also by a distinct nonverbal imagery model of thought as well. It discusses the philosophy of science associated with the dual coding approach, emphasizing the advantages of empiricism in the study of cognitive phenomena and shows that the fundamentals of the theory have stood up well to empirical challenges over the years.
Typescript. Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, Graduate School of Arts and Science, 1981. Bibliography: leaves 188-205.
Thesis (Ph. D.) --New York University, 1981. Bibliography: leaves 188-205. Photocopy of typescript.
A review of theories of traumatic neurosis or posttraumatic stress disorder reveals a relative neglect of the role of posttraumatic imagery. The broad range of imagery has not been recognized, nor its role in the disorder adequately formulated. A two-dimensional framework for understanding posttraumatic stress disorder based on 1) repetitions of trauma-related images, affects, somatic states, and actions and 2) defensive functioning puts into perspective the centrality of traumatic imagery, implies a reorganization of DSM-III criteria, points to new directions for research, and clarifies diagnostic and clinical confusion.
All wars are “hell.” Certain aspects of the Vietnam War, however, differentiated it from World War II and the Korean Conflict: guerrilla tactics predominated; this war was undeclared and became increasingly unpopular; and for the first time the exposure of war atrocities committed by Americans became a national issue. Many Vietnam veterans reflect the impact of these differences in their conflictual attitudes toward their combat experiences and in their psychopathology. The Vietnam combat veteran who reports atrocities presents a special therapeutic challenge. The therapist's countertransference and real, natural response to the realities of the patient's experience must be continually monitored and confronted. If the therapist is honest with him/herself, a therapeutic relationship becomes possible for men whom many therapists are, or would be, repulsed and frightened by and would never treat.
Psychology of the transference Bollingen Series) Psychological and Social Characteristics of Children of Vietnam Combat Veterans, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National As-sociation of School Psychologists
- C J Jung
- Nj Kehle
- T J Parsons
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