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Research has shown that vicarious trauma results in great personal and professional costs for social workers (Bride, 2007). The social work profession has an obligation to their members, and those they serve, to ensure that those providing mental health interventions are functioning optimally (National Association of Social Workers, 2008). Burnout and vicarious trauma prevent workers from functioning at maximum capacity. Clinical social workers are particularly vulnerable to burnout with spiritual dimensions in the form of questioning the meaning of work, loss of purpose, hopelessness, and internalizing the suffering of their clients' trauma. Spiritual practices have often been engaged to lessen the effect of trauma and facilitate personal and professional growth (Siegel, 2010; Stern 2004). Social workers can re-engage with the meaning of their work through concrete spiritual practices that improve their ability to sustain the amount of emotion involved in working with trauma (Collins, 2005; Trippany, Kress & Wilcoxon, 2004). This article addresses ways social workers can support themselves and their work through spiritual self-care, in the service of improving client outcomes through sustained connection. Spiritually based practice will be explored as a way to re-connect to the meaning of the work and the satisfaction compassion can bring (Griffith & Griffith, 2002; Pargament, 2007). A self-care model will be presented to help individual workers address the impact of the work, and organizations to address the environmental and cultural contributors to vicarious trauma. This model will integrate spiritual practice and present specific spiritual self-care meditation practices.
Key Words: vicarious trauma, spirituality, self-care, meditation.
REGARDLESS OF PRACTICE AREA OR POPULATION, SOCIAL WORKERS WILL engage with individuals, families, communities, and populations with histories of trauma. Research shows that 50% of people experience some form of traumatic stressor in their lifetime (Dass-Brailsford, 2007). Social workers work with the most vulnerable of clients who are suffering from the effects of trauma. Working with clients who are suffering from trauma can also be painful for the social workers trying to help.
Trauma and Vicarious Trauma
Traumatic stressors consist of direct exposure to major events such as war, rape, fatal accidents, and situations in which persons fear their lives are in danger or that physical injury is threatened. Traumatic stressors also include indirect exposure through witnessing or learning about such...