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Transcript:
Joelle Mitchell:
For those of our listeners who don't know what vicarious trauma is can you give us a bit of a definition?
Diya Dey:
Sure. Look, as the name suggests it's essentially second-hand trauma and it's the interaction between, it's a dynamic interaction between the individual and their experience of that second-hand trauma. And it results in physiological and psychological impacts very similar to what you'd see with PTSD, burnout and few other things. And that's one of the things that makes it difficult to distinguish from other challenges.
But one of the key features of vicarious trauma, what distinguishes it from other things like burnout is actually, there's a moral disillusionment that comes in. Like there's a significant shift in world view. There's a cynicism that develops. And it often happens in professions where people join for a purpose. You know, they're very purpose driven, they join because they wanna make a difference.
Whether it's in justice or whether they're driven by, you know, caring professions like psychologists, nurses then even teachers actually. Where you are really driven by a passion and you're driven by wanting to make a difference. And that results in a sense of empathic engagement with the people that you're working with often. And you start identifying with their trauma and it starts having an impact.
And the other thing to note is, it is a gradual process. You could be impacted by one particular case, absolutely. But in most instances vicarious trauma develops over time. It is a cumulative impact and that's why someone had described it to me as you know, it's like water dripping on a rock. You don't realize how much damage it's doing till the rock cracks. And from that perspective it's also quite hidden. So it's very hard to identify before, unless you're being proactive unless you're putting in place systems it's very hard to recognize it till the impact is visible. And by then it might be quite late to actually be you know, have a positive outcome I suppose.
