Can We Please Just Talk About Vicarious Trauma
By: Laurie McCaffrey, Practice Affiliate, Centre for Healthy Communities
June 18, 2021
Centre for Healthy Communities practice affiliate, Laurie McCaffrey, recently delivered a presentation to the Alberta Health Services Evaluation Network called Vicarious Trauma in Evaluation: What is it and what does it mean for evaluators? (January 2021). The AHS Evaluation Network includes over 200 people working in evaluation and health research. Special thanks to Marwa Fikry and Lyne Bourassa with Alberta Health Services for facilitating this knowledge sharing opportunity.
“Do you want to hear about trauma? I’ll tell you a story about trauma!” That was how it began. This is a story about my experience of vicarious trauma. What is it? What does it mean for evaluators?
The term vicarious traumatization was developed in 1990 by Irene Lisa McCann and Laurie Anne Pearlman based on their research with therapists working with trauma victims. The authors observed that people who work with victims may “experience profound psychological effects...that can be disruptive and painful for the helper and can persist for months or years after work with traumatized persons.” Fast forward three decades later and in 2020 the British Medical Association defined vicarious trauma as “a process of change resulting from empathetic engagement with trauma survivors.”
This phenomenon can happen to anyone. Researchers, journalists, therapists, family members, any human being who engages with people and their stories of pain and suffering: we are all vulnerable to the process of vicarious trauma. As we continue to live through a devastating pandemic, stories of tragedy and loss are all around us.
Vicarious trauma can result in lingering feelings of anger, rage, sadness, shame, self-doubt, guilt, loss of hope, pessimism, cynicism, distancing, numbing or detachment. It can result in feeling overly emotionally involved and preoccupied with thoughts of the trauma incident. Take a minute and think about what you’ve felt over the last year and why that might be, what and who you’ve been exposed to and you begin to get a sense of just how wide reaching this issue is now and the potential lingering effects.
I experienced vicarious trauma while listening to a story about something profoundly disturbing that happened to someone else. I was interviewing a project stakeholder about a client’s experience of trauma. The story was extremely tragic and had contributed to many ongoing challenges in his life. This story felt impossible to overcome. How can one human being withstand such immense pain and still move on?
I thought I already knew about trauma. I’d had my own life experiences, growing up with domestic violence and alcoholism in my family. Resilient, strong, and educated, I felt more than prepared for whatever stories might be shared. Except this time I wasn’t prepared.
The traumatic experience hadn’t happened to me, but I connected with the story so strongly, so vividly, it felt like I was there. This story stayed with me for a long time, and for a while I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I couldn’t share details with anyone outside of the project because they were confidential. I held on to this heartbreaking story, trying to process what it all meant. I would close my eyes and picture myself walking through the scene and I would feel the same pain, sorrow and grief that I imagine the trauma survivor had felt. I thought it would go away eventually, but it wasn’t going away. I knew I had to do something, but what?
As an evaluation consultant, I have the distinct honour of engaging with people and their stories. I feel absolutely privileged when people share their authentic emotions with me. I feel a strong sense of pride in being able to empathize with and connect to people’s experiences and I don’t want to lose this ability. At the same time, I recognize the need for boundaries and when to ask for help. It’s good to empathize but not healthy to become overly emotionally involved or to have recurring thoughts of the trauma incident. So, I spoke up. I reached out to my colleague on the project team. I asked, “can we talk?”
Talk, one simple, powerful word and a first step towards resolution for me. Our team made time for reflection and debriefing, to process the powerful emotions we were experiencing and to make sense of what we were hearing in the interviews. These conversations were real, raw and honest. It’s what we expect from our clients and stakeholders; we were open with each other and it was empowering and liberating.
The project team provided additional training and support. I attended a full day session on vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue. It was reassuring to know I wasn’t alone. There was not only a name for what happened, but support and coping strategies to help overcome and grow from the experience.
Like most things in life it’s a journey and I want to be clear, I have taken positive steps but that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly 100 percent better. What it does mean is that I have a great interest in learning more about the topic in order to help myself and the people in my life with this very real issue.
It also means I want to step up and articulate where I’m at because I believe you can live vicariously through positive things as well like healing. My goal in sharing this story is to help others understand their own challenges and to provide, as McCann and Pearlman put it, “optimism and hopefulness in the face of tragedy”.
References and Additional Resources
- McCann, I.L., Pearlman, L.A. Vicarious traumatization: A framework for understanding the psychological effects of working with victims. J Trauma Stress 3, 131–149 (1990). DOI: 10.1007/bf00975140
- British Medical Association (2020). Vicarious trauma: signs and strategies for coping. https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/your-wellbeing/vicarious-trauma/vicarious-trauma-signs-and-strategies-for-coping