Vicarious trauma, themes in research, and terminology: A review of literature.

Abstract

Growth in the arena of trauma-informed care has correspondingly created interest in the potential hazards for clinicians who regularly provide trauma-based services. However, what to call the phenomena of clinicians being affected by bearing witness to other's trauma is a source of perplexity. A review of research indicated numerous terms are being used to describe this phenomenon. The literature review looked specifically at the term vicarious trauma, first developed by McCann and Pearlman (1990), and other closely related terms used in current literature (secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, burnout, countertransference, traumatic countertransference, posttraumatic stress disorder, emotional contagion, and shared trauma). Vicarious trauma is a narrowly defined term, yet similar terms have been developed with overlapping characteristics and symptoms. Commonalities encountered in the review of literature were the lack of operationalized terms, vocabulary mismanagement, and the use of incorrect terminology when designing and conducting research, creating potential vulnerabilities to reliability and validity of findings. The implications are important to various issues, specifically an increase in the collective knowledge base and trustworthy information concerning vicarious trauma and similar terms, avenues to decrease research inconsistencies, better prevention measures, enhancement of clinical practice behaviors, and precautions for future research endeavors.

Evaluating the Facilitating Attuned Interactions (FAN) approach: Vicarious Trauma, professional Burnout, and reflective practice

“…This hypothesis was supported by the data, which showed that child welfare professionals' vicarious trauma significantly and positively predicted levels of professional burnout. This finding complements previous research showing that job burnout and distress resulting from traumatic content among individuals working in human service professions are related (see Branson, 2019;Fansher et al, 2019). These data also suggest that there is a need to address the issue of vicarious trauma in order to reduce levels of professional burnout among the child welfare and early childhood workforce.…”

“…The child welfare and early childhood workforce faces numerous difficulties in their unique line of work, and one noteworthy work-related obstacle is vicarious trauma. Vicarious trauma (also called secondary traumatic stress or compassion fatigue; Branson, 2019;Vrklevski & Franklin, 2008) refers to a cumulative process of cognitive changes due to exposure to the experiences of traumatized clients that results in disruptions to identity, worldview, and beliefs about trust and safety (Branson, 2019;Canfield, 2005;McCann & Pearlman, 1990). When professionals seek to internally process or make meaning out of traumatic content instead of working out the meaning of difficult work experiences in a structured and safe environment with another professional such as a supervisor, they are more likely to experience vicarious trauma (McCann & Pearlman, 1990;Regehr, Hemsworth, Leslie, Howe, & Chau, 2004;Vrklevski & Franklin, 2008).…”

“…Many child welfare professionals affected by vicarious trauma experience professional burnout as evidenced by missed work, loss of motivation, increased interpersonal distance with their clients and intimate others, and stress-induced medical conditions. Further, many eventually leave the child welfare profession altogether (Branson, 2019;Devilly, Wright, & Varker, 2009). Therefore, the need for reducing the impact of vicarious trauma on child welfare and early childhood professionals is critically important for the professionals and the clients with whom they work.…”

“…Although vicarious trauma and burnout are sometimes used to refer to the same phenomenon (e.g., Branson, 2019), recent evidence suggests that vicarious trauma is distinct from and specifically precedes burnout (Butler et al, 2017;Fansher et al, 2019). For example, Butler et al (2017) found that experiencing re-traumatization and vicarious traumatization during a mental health training program predicted burnout among participating students.…”

“…In summary, extant research highlights the importance of identifying malleable ways to decrease vicarious trauma among child welfare professionals to prevent burnout (e.g., Branson, 2019;Shepard, 2013). As it is unlikely that the traumatic nature of these professionals' work will change, the current evaluation sought to examine whether the FAN approach to reflective practice can mitigate the relationship between vicarious trauma and burnout.…”