Monday, November 9, 2009

Treating trauma victims may cause its own trauma

People who are hired to treat victims of trauma may be at risk themselves to developing similar symptoms of their patient. Psychiatrists, social workers, or advocates can go through a lot of emotional stress after intensive exposure to patients and their horror stories. Experts call this "Vicarious Trauma."
This subject has recently been brought up due to the shooting at Fort Hood. Investigators are trying to piece together why Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist would open fire at a military processing center Thursday.
Being an army psychiatrist, Hasan worked to help others in high-stress situations. He had never been deployed and he was scheduled for deployment the day of the shooting.
The symptoms of vicarious trauma -- stress, social withdrawal, sensitization to televised violence -- are not enough to make people violent themselves, said Barbara Rothbaum
The toll of bearing witness to account of others' suffering can take many forms. Some therapists may begin to start having the same nightmares that their patients talk to them about. No matter how much schooling is involved, Vicarious Trauma can happen to anyone who is dealing with patients who have undergone extreme amounts of stress.

6 comments:

  1. I would never expect that this is possible, because i thought the psychiarists have to learn to handle this

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  2. This is a good post, Adam...definitely timely and relevant to what's happening in the news these days.

    Make sure you label your posts as a "current event". I've also got to dock some points for being a few days late. Otherwise, good work!

    18/25

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  3. That is jut very scary! It seems like nothing can be truly cure.

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  4. Lauren: Please post comments that show some sort of understanding about what you've read. Proofreading before you post is a good idea too.

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  5. I guess some people just handle stress better than others.

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  6. This is very interesting because I may be interested in psychology, and I never would of thought therapists could start having the same symptoms as their patients. That is kind of scary and would take a strong mind set to be able to handle that.

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