3.3 Trauma and the Human Service Professional: Resilience
3.3 Trauma and the Human Service Professional: Resilience
Human service professionals are often exposed to trauma during their work. Even this secondhand exposure to trauma can have significant physical and psychological impacts if human service workers do not have the tools to prevent and address its impact. When thinking about the trauma that human services professionals are exposed to, it seems that many think of resilience as the complete opposite of trauma. However, it is a bit more complex than that.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from difficult times in life. It comes from the lessons and skills we absorb as we grow and as we face difficulties in life. Part of building resilience is having safety nets and relationships with the community, not just with friends and family.
When considering resilience, it is important to center race, as BIPOC people have been praised for the survival of a system that was not built for them to thrive in or even live in. While some people look or act more resilient, the idea of comparing one person’s experience of resilience to another’s is how resilience has been defined in the past.
Instead of calling people resilient, let us look at solutions for systems of oppression that have forced whole communities to find ways to survive. For an example of critical thinking about the term “resilient,” listen to the trailer of the podcast Don’t Call Me Resilient [Podcast] by host Vinita Srivastava. She has conversations with experts from different fields and real people to make sense of the news from an anti-racist perspective and how the word resilience is used in context to the systems of oppression they exist in.
As human service providers, it is up to us to consider our biases toward experiences we do not share. Even experiences we do share with others, including our clients, may cloud our reasoning as to why we think clients are behaving in certain ways.
Trauma Exposure
Secondary trauma, also called secondary traumatic stress, is an occupational challenge for people working in the human services field due to their continuous exposure to victims of trauma and violence. This work-related trauma exposure can occur from experiences such as:
- Listening to individuals, families, groups, communities, and systems recount their victimization
- Looking at videos of exploited children and families
- Reviewing case files, historical data, and stories
- Hearing about or responding to the aftermath of violence and other traumatic events
- Responding to mass violence incidents that have resulted in numerous injuries and deaths (Office for Victims of Crime, 2013)
Secondary trauma is associated with a sense of confusion, helplessness, and a greater sense of isolation from supporters than is seen with burnout (Administration for Children & Families, 2017). It is preventable and treatable. If unaddressed, the symptoms can result in problems with mental and physical health, strained personal relationships, and poor work per