Essay On Vicarious Trauma

Vicarious trauma is a type of trauma I was unaware of until I began taking this class. Vicarious trauma is defined as any form of trauma that is experienced secondhand. In other words, it can defined as experiencing post traumatic stress disorder symptoms after repeatedly being exposed to any form of trauma. It is also known as compassion fatigue or secondary traumatic stress. Before the discussion, I had never discussed vicarious trauma in any previous classes. However, the discussion in class and article provided me with an understanding of vicarious trauma that I never knew. While it is common to discuss vicarious trauma in Psychology classes, I never knew that it could be associated with post traumatic stress disorder. Vicarious trauma …show more content…
At this very moment, it is something that I have never heard discussed in depth, and I feel that if people were to become more aware, then the topic would become more understood. For future research, I feel that other avenues of vicarious trauma should be explored. The avenues that I feel should be further explored would be the affect that constantly hearing of violence in the news have on people or how watching things occur in the community have on people. Because it is assumed that only people who have constant contact with the victim themselves have it, it is not considered that normal people can experience it. Typically, topics such as this is seen as the norm or a change in …show more content…
If one plans to be a good therapist, one would need to have an understanding of vicarious trauma and the effects it can have on them. One must also understand that vicarious trauma does not only happen in counselors and first responders but in regular people as well. Although you would assume that through helping others overcome their demons, that it would be easy to close the chapter but one must understand that through helping others overcome their demons you intercept their problems and they sometimes become your