Vicarious trauma

Have you ever felt really down from the things you hear or see at your work?? This is a really good link to describe 'vicarious trauma' This is one of the things that really works insiduously on workers in the human services. It is also often something that organisations dont deal with very well. For me stories of abuse/assault/violence trigger strong responses and I have been known to be really traumatised by the stories that people have told me. If you are interested read on!!

Vicarious trauma is related to concepts such as 'emotional exhaustion', 'burnout', 'compassion fatigue', 'secondary traumatisation' and 'counter-transference', but some key differences exist between some of these concepts (see Dunkley and Whelan, 2006). It can also be expressed as 'feeling heavy', or when the work (or an aspect of the work) 'gets inside you'. Click here to read more.