Vicarious traumatization

I started the top of this talking about Renee, and everyone's heard about burnout in nursing.

And we actually have an episode on vicarious trauma.

So... little secret here.

When we wanted, when I wanted to do that episode, I went to chat GPT and I said, give me 10 other words besides burnout.

And vicarious trauma was one of them.

So vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue were on there.

And so Kelsey, Kelsey, Kirby Williams, she's a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner in Virginia, the DMV, where the heart of this show is from.

And she's one of the founders of the Society of Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners of Color, along with Anyata Bond, who's been a guest on here.

Just because you didn't scrape them off the highway doesn't mean you're not gonna get some level of trauma from that, that MBA or that MCA patient who, you know, is, it really grabs your heart.

You know, we also have vicarious trauma where, um, you know, as human beings, we, we, you know, we care for others, and we absorb their emotions.

And so those are the ones where the vicarious trauma, the example I use is, um, so Rhonda Cornum was in the first Gulf War.

She was a flight surgeon, and amazing human being, and she had been through SERE school, so she knew how to survive and, you know, and do all that s- all that stuff and not give up, you know, classified information.

She was shot down, and she's a POW for about a week.

And Rhonda Cornum, retired one-star general Rhonda Cornum, Brigadier General Rhonda Cornum, wrote a book, taught SERE school at Fort Bragg for the majority of her career.

The person who became my patient was her Navy nurse who floated home on the boat with her, and she sat down on my couch, burst into tears and said, "I should not need help be- because this didn't happen to me." And I'm like, "Oh my gosh.

Like, let me tell you about vicarious trauma." And it's, it's so, like, people think, "Well, this didn't happen to me.

know what's motivating their supporters and what their supporters are going through which is often you know something intense as well or they might you know their motivations for giving might be connected to you know their own trauma that they've experienced related to the trauma or whatever it is that the organization supports and it's like people for a long time haven't recognized that it's a burden it can wear people out especially if they're managing too many relationships and combine that with high turnover rates when you lose those people who have that real connection you lose something that a crm can never just like replicate pass on and so even from a funding perspective we need to support our development officers our major gifts officers to hold that many meaningful relationships that might be charged with pain and and traumatic experience themselves

yeah and that's difficult you mentioned relationships right like if you lose people because they're burned out you lose the relationships they've built with the community the understanding of the the culture those nuances so that those relationships those trust they've built their knowledge about the community that's years of experience that you're losing and that takes time to build up so it really really leaves organizations to do this you mentioned i think something related to vicarious trauma right is when they're dealing with people and who are experiencing trauma and because of just hearing about their experiences people experience vicarious trauma but one thing too to add more hope and positivity to that i've heard recently of the concept of vicarious resilience which is essentially by listening to people and their stories of how they've survived and how they've thrived by connecting with them, it can also inspire you and build resilience in you.

So I think making sure that people are protected from vicarious trauma, yes, but that they're also gaining strengths from the communities they serve.

I love

that.

Welcome to the Vicarious Trauma and Resilience Podcast.

I'm Dr. Jenny Hughes, trauma psychologist and founder of the Brave Trauma Therapist Collective.

If you carry the weight of trauma work or you lead people who do, you're in the right place and you're in good company.

Last week, a colleague of mine emailed me in her quest to disentangle vicarious trauma and burnout.

I'm going to walk you through our conversation today because I want you to know that there really are leaders out there that are thinking deeply about this stuff because they know how much it matters to the future of their clinicians and staff.

These are the leaders who care about their workforce and want to keep them around and are realizing that the age old advice to offer an EAP service and throw a pizza party is perhaps a bit short sighted.

She's been asked to currently help an organization figure out how to support its frontline staff.

So we're talking about the people at the front desk, security guards, all those folks who are hidden helping professionals and are really easily overlooked when organizations reach out with support.

And I loved going there.

But then at the time, it's just like you're getting that trauma, that vicarious trauma is just starting to hit you and then you're just hearing it.

And then I didn't realize that listening to these stories, which either you were a part of or not, you can actually get trauma from that.

And then I said to myself, wow, like nobody is really taking care of us at that point.

You are the therapist.

I am not trained in therapy.

I think the term is secondary trauma or vicarious trauma, but that is a real thing.

And I think for many law enforcement and a lot of folks that I know and love, Well, I didn't go through it.

Hashtag muffs.

How many times do you say that in one episode?

Don't.

Muff.

thought it.

Not me.

On episode 13.

Lucky for some.

It's a constant cycle that's very hard to break out of and it's a bit of a race to the bottom, I think, in that situation.

I want to distinguish the reason why we're talking about this in family law in particular, because burnout can be very different to vicarious trauma.

So vicarious trauma comes specifically from repeated empathetic engagement with other people's traumatic experiences.

That is a family lawyer's day in a definition, isn't it? That's right.

So the distinction matters because I think burnout tends to sound like I'm exhausted before the day even starts.

I used to be good at this.

I'm no longer good at this.

And trauma, vicarious trauma can sound like I don't trust anyone anymore.

They are overworked, understaffed, and occasionally even face physical violence from the very people they are trying to help.

The result? A silent epidemic of caregiver fatigue and vicarious trauma.

If you caught my recent solo episode, you know I've been gripped by the realism of the new HBO show, The Pit, and its protagonist, Dr. Robbie.

Well, it turns out there is a real-life counterpart whose name just happens to be Dr. Robbie.

I'd say it's pretty right on.

And you have been in various places.

Jobs that have exposed you to trauma, vicarious trauma, real trauma.

You've been an EMT, you've been on a SWAT team, you've been ER physician or ED physician, depending on how you want to not to be confused with erectile dysfunction, but emergency department, which I think most hospitals are calling it these days rather than just ER.