Vicarious Trauma

Vicarious Trauma refers to indirect exposure to other people’s Trauma, including through repeated exposure to written or visual details of traumatic events, that has the same harmful effect on our mental health as experiencing Trauma directly.

If you are or have recently been working with survivors of traumatic events or have witnessed a traumatic event occur to someone else, you should be mindful of if you’re experiencing any of these warning signs of Vicarious Trauma:

• Ongoing strong emotions – feelings of anger, rage and sadness – about what the trauma survivor experienced
• Becoming emotionally ‘overly involved’ with the trauma-survivor
• Feelings of bystander guilt or shame and self-doubt
• Feelings of loss of hope, pessimism, cynicism
• Feelings of anxiety
• Exhaustion and burnout
• Feelings of re-experiencing the traumatic event
• Nightmares
• Avoidance of people and developing a sense of detachment or numbness through deliberately distancing yourself

 If you feel you may be suffering from Vicarious Trauma, these coping strategies may provide some support. 

• Increase your ‘self-observation’ by checking in with yourself and recognising signs of Vicarious Trauma, including anxiety, stress and feeling burnt.
• Look after your mental and physical well-being as best you can through strategies like exercising, practising self-care and staying connected to others.
• Maintain a healthy work and life balance by having interests and hobbies outside of your work 
• Be realistic about what is possible for you to accomplish when supporting others.
• Try to avoid taking on direct responsibility for the well-being of trauma survivors with whom you work or support while providing them with the tools they need to care for themselves.
• Take regular breaks from work, including time off when you need to
• Reach out to friends, family and team members for social support
• When you have the opportunity to debrief with your team members at work, try and do so

Phoenix Australia’s Vicarious Trauma course was developed by clinical experts in mental health to help optimise organisational resilience and minimise the risk of vicarious trauma for your workforce. Resilience, like physical strength, can be built and maintained with regular evidence-based practices – at home and in the workplace. The course takes a practical approach, introducing an organisational framework to help guide you in developing healthy individual and work practices that will build resilience and mitigate risk.