Title: Compassion Fatigue, Vicarious Trauma and Burnout - what's the difference? - Char Richard
Headings: Compassion Fatigue, Vicarious Trauma and Burnout – what’s the difference?
Compassion Fatigue, Vicarious Trauma and Burnout – what’s the difference?
Content: By learning about CF and developing ways to manage it, these helpers can continue to do the work they love, and are good at, while still being able to thrive personally. Simply leaving one helping job and moving into another will not reduce one’s CF. Vicarious Trauma: When a person is continuously exposed to other people’s traumatic experiences through witnessing and/or hearing others’ stories, vicarious trauma can be experienced. Vicarious trauma (VT) means that you have not been the direct victim of a trauma, but you have experienced it second hand through your client’s stories and may be experiencing post traumatic stress symptoms similar to the person who experienced it. This can include intrusive imagery (images of trauma popping into your head) dreaming about the traumatic situation or avoiding certain activities and so on. Ongoing vicarious trauma can result in a shift in the helper’s world view and sense of meaning, for example, someone who may regularly feel safe can begin to doubt their safety if they work with victims of crime and hear numerous stories of crimes and trauma. If a helper has a previous history of trauma (and many have as more than 70% of the population has experienced one or more event significant enough to be traumatic) that is unresolved, then you are more likely to experience VT. Burnout: Burnout is the extreme end of Compassion Fatigue.