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This study investigated three occupational hazards of therapy with trauma victims: vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress (or "compassion fatigue"), which describe therapists' adverse reactions to clients' traumatic material, and burnout, a stress response experienced in many emotionally demanding "people work" jobs. Among 101 trauma counselors, client exposure workload and being paid as a staff member (vs. volunteer) were related to burnout sub-scales, but not as expected to overall burnout or vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, or general distress. More educated counselors and those seeing more clients reported less vicarious trauma. Younger counselors and those with more trauma counseling experience reported more emotional exhaustion. Findings have implications for training, treatment, and agency support systems.
Keywords: trauma; occupational hazards; domestic violence; therapy; sexual abuse; burnout
Assisting victims of violence can be an emotionally hazardous occupation for the helpers. Two lines of research may be useful in better understanding the nature of occupational stressors that may affect these helpers and in developing strategies to prevent and relieve stress-related difficulties. Burnout is a well-studied response to the interpersonal stresses of work with people who are in emotionally demanding situations, such as most human service professions (Cherniss, 1980; Maslach, 1976, 1982, 1996; Pines, 1993; Pranger & Brown, 1992). More recently, there is growing clinical and research evidence that counselors who work with traumatized clients may develop reactions specific to the traumatic nature of the clients' material. Service providers, such as sexual assault counselors or police officers with high numbers of sexually assaulted clients, may begin to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms after frequent exposure to sexual assault survivors (Alexander, de Chasney, Marshall, Campbell, Johnson, & Wright, 1989; Astin, 1997; Farrenkopf, 1992; Martin, McKean & Veltkamp, 1986; McCann & Pearlman, 1990a, 1990b; Pearlman & Mac Ian, 1995; Remer & Ferguson, 1995; Schauben & Frazier, 1995). Symptoms such as these have been called secondary traumatic stress or compassion fatigue (Figley, 1983, 1995) and vicarious trauma (McCann & Pearlman, 1990a, 1990b).
The present study examines the presence and degree of trauma-related and burnout symptoms in both sexual assault and domestic violence agency volunteer and paid staff in relation to their job roles and their degree of exposure to clients. Some individuals may be drawn to sexual assault or domestic violence...