1. Secondary Trauma for Caregivers and professionals
Presenter Courtney Smith, M.Ed
Blue Spiral Consulting

2. Contents History of Caregiver Stress and Secondary Trauma
Trauma Exposure Response
Trauma Stewardship
Risk factors
Prevention

3. History

4. Trauma Exposure Response
Caregiver Stress
Empathic Strain
Compassion Fatigue
Vicarious Traumatization
Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder
First noted in the early 1990s in reference to Vietnam vets and Holocaust survivors.
In 2007, CNN published an article about caring for aging parents and called it “Caregiver Stress”
This report referenced a study indicated one out of every four families was caring for a relative over 50 and linking that caring to increased medical and health risks including higher blood pressure, diabetes, compromised immune systems and other illness linked to prolonged elevated stress hormones.
Charles Figley used the term “Compassion Fatigue” and “Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Laurie Anne Pearlman, Karen Saakvitne and IL McCann refer to the process as “Vicarious Traumatization.”
Jon Conte uses the word, “Empathic Strain”

5. Trauma Exposure Response
Defined as the transformation that takes place within us as a result of exposure to the suffering of other people, living beings or the planet.
Ways in which the world looks and feels like a different place to you as a result of the work that you do or the field that you are in.

6. What Does Trauma Exposure Response Look Like?
Exhaustion
Emotional numbing
Removal of authentic self for protection
Health concerns
Ignoring needs of self and family
Cynicism
Suffering for the cause
Martyrdom
A culture of suck-it-up
Keep going no matter what
Over work
Not stopping to process
Participant page – 16 warning signs

8. What is Trauma Stewardship?
Trauma Stewardship refers to the process of:
How we come to do this work
How we are affected by it
How we make sense of and learn from our experiences
How we manage our trauma exposure
How we shift our practice over time
What is Trauma Stewardship?
Stewardship: the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.

9. LaUra Van DerNoot Lipsky

10. Trauma Stewardship is:
Remembering that what we do is a privilege and that answering the call to help is a sacred process.
It means maintaining our highest ethics, integrity and responsibility to ourselves, to those we help, and to the systems in which we are helpers.
In many ways, this work is spiritual in nature and so requires a daily practice.

11. Trauma Stewardship includes:
Daily practice through which individuals, organizations and societies tend to the hardship, pain or trauma experienced by humans, other living beings, or the planet itself.
The understanding that both joy and deep pain are realities of life and that suffering can be transformed into meaningful growth.
Knowing that self care is the only solution to caregiver fatigue and secondary trauma
Modeling SELF CARE
Teaching self care strategies that work

13. Risk factors

14. 16 Warning Signs of Trauma Exposure Response
Feeling Helpless and Hopeless
A Sense that One Can Never Do Enough
Hyper vigilance
Diminished Creativity
Inability to Embrace Complexity
Minimizing
Chronic Exhaustion or Physical Ailments
Inability to Listen – Deliberate Avoidance
Participant page – 16 warning signs

15. 16 Warning Signs of Trauma Exposure Response
Dissociative Moments
Sense of Persecution
Guilt
Fear
Anger and Cynicism
Inability to Empathize/Numbing
Addictions
Grandiosity – An Inflated Sense of Importance Related to One’s Work

17. Notion of scarcity and “not enough-ness” comes from a larger framework of systematic oppression.
Internalized oppression happens when victims believe in the notion of scarcity. The oppressor creates a climate in which people feel there is not enough – so they conform to the oppressor’s ideals to survive.
p. 60
Will we ever be Black enough? Man enough? Gay enough?
NY City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) has actually used this “enough” concept to recruit social workers
p. 62
Culture of pushing yourself to your limits at the expense of your health and your family for the good of the cause and not taking care of yourself and your own family’s needs.
Never Enoughness

19. Hyper Vigilance Difficulty staying fully present in the moment
Hyper vigilance to the work to the exclusion of everything else.
Feelings that everything around is exaggerated, significant and dangerous or a safety concern.
Feeling like we are always “on” even when there is nothing to do
Trauma First Aid p. 65
Arousal response
Examples: No spending the night with ‘pedofiles’
GAP shopping trip causes trauma exposure response to clothing and human trafficking

21. Diminished Creativity
Bored with what you’re doing
Stagnant practice that looks the same with everyone
Inability to have periods of rest that fuel creativity
Workplaces that create environments where creativity isn’t valued or encouraged

22. Chronic Exhaustion/Illness
There is a difference between feeling tired because you have put in a hard day’s work and feeling exhausted in every cell of your being.
Trauma exposure is tiring.
As exposure accrues, our bodies and minds require extra attention to be fully rested and refreshed.

24. Inability to Listen- Deliberate Avoidance
When avoidance is a regular habit in your life, the highlight of your workweek is when you don’t have to do your job.
Often shows up in our personal lives –
Don’t answer the phone
Only hang out with people who “get it”
Superficial engagements with people

25. “I feel guilty because I can leave at the end of the day”
“I went shopping last week for a pair of shoes, and I thought to myself, “What kind of a persons would go shopping for a pair of shoes right now?” – Katrina worker
Thich Nhat Hanh
Should we work to enjoy and appreciate the beauty in life?
No, whould should not ever have to work to tak in what is beautiful, sacred, precious.
Minimizing your own family, hobbies, sense of self, feelings of hopefulness and optimism in contrast to what and who you are working for.

26. Prevention
Look in the slide notes below for topics to consider talking about
Consider talking about:
Personal self-care
Social self-care

27. Mindfulness or Meditation Practice
Daily Practice 1
Mindfulness or Meditation Practice 2
Gratitude Journaling 3
Physical Exercise 4
Concrete plans for self care and relief

28. Shawn Achor – The Happy Secret to Better Work

29. Metta Meditation May I be happy May I be peaceful
May I be well in body and mind
May I be free from suffering
May I experience lovingkindness
Levels of Metta Loving-kindness
Myself “May I ”
Beloved “May he, she. . .”
Neutral “May he, she. . .”
Difficult “May he, she. . .”
Humanity “May we all. . . “

30. For More information: Courtney@bluespiralconsulting.com