Background

Vicarious trauma is defined as the psychological, physical, and interpersonal consequences of being exposed to a client’s traumatic material (McCann & Pearlman, 1990).  It is the effect of bearing witness, over time, to the emotional pain and explicit details of another person’s suffering, loss, and trauma.  Traumatic events may include combat, terrorist events such as 9/11, sexual assault, domestic violence, or other violent crimes. 

Key Points

• Who It Can Affect.  Military leaders, helping professionals, such as chaplains, volunteers, family advocates, medical professionals, counselors, and first responders, or other direct service providers can experience vicarious trauma as a result of repeated, secondhand exposure to other people’s trauma. 
• Recognizing the Symptoms of Vicarious Trauma. The first step in addressing vicarious trauma is to recognize the symptoms. The following is a list of some of the more common symptoms of vicarious trauma: 
  • physical - tired, low energy, difficulty sleeping, changes in sex drive, muscle tension, headaches, gastrointestinal complaints
  • emotional - feeling detached, lonely, overwhelmed, anxious, angry, frustrated, depressed, hopeless, helpless, unfulfilled
  • social/interpersonal - withdrawn, difficulty balancing personal and work life, increased concern or worry for loved ones, irritability, more conflicts
  • psychological - decreased motivation and drive, changes in cognitive schemas and world view, hypersensitivity to trauma issues in everyday life, cynicism, distorted world view, recurrent thoughts about work, difficulty detaching from work mentally
  • spiritual - loss of meaning, loss of hope or connection, devaluing spirituality (questioning/doubting), loss of faith, angry, hurt, uncertain, change of spiritual paths or practices, reconnection with spiritual beliefs
• Organizational/Command Support. Organizational support can be critical to preventing and addressing vicarious trauma.  Strategies include:
  • debriefing – critical incident debriefing is a formalized method for processing specific traumatic events
  • peer support/group support – can be formal or informal, and can be peer or professionally led

Submit a Question

To submit a question regarding DoD policy or programs for this topic, click on the button.