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Developing Resilience in Trauma Workers

Adeyinka M. Akinsulure-Smith, Ph.D. The City College of New York

& Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture

Division 56 Early Career Psychologists Committee July 11, 2013

The Cost of Caring: One Clinician’s Journey

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What we saw…

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What we heard…

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Amowitz, L.L., Reis, C., Lyons, K.H., Vann, B., Mansaray, B., Akinsulure-Smith, A.M., Taylor, L. & Iacopino, V. (2002). Prevalence of war-related sexual violence and other human rights abuses among internally displaced persons in Sierra Leone. Journal of the American Medical Association, 287, 513-521.

What was happening to me?

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v BURNOUT?

v COUNTERTRANSFERENCE (CT)?

v COMPASSION FATIGUE (CF)?

v SECONDARY TRAUMATIC STRESS (STS)?

v VICARIOUS TRAUMA (VT)?

What do we know about the issue?

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Some of the Professions that are MOST vulnerable to VT:

Ø Healthcare providers Ø Mental health professionals Ø Emergency service personnel Ø  Firemen Ø  Police Ø  Search & Rescue teams

Other professions vulnerable to VT

Ø Journalists and media specialists involved in mass communication

Feinstein, A., Owens, J., Blair, N. (2002). A hazardous profession: War, journalists, and psychopathology. American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 1570-1575

Pyevich, C.M, Newman, E., Daleiden, E. (2003). The relationship

among cognitive schemas, job-related traumatic exposure, and post-traumatic stress disorder in journalists. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 16, 325-328)

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Main risk factors for VT

1)  Exposure to the stories (or images) of traumatized people

2)  Your empathic sensitivity to their suffering, and

3)  Any unresolved emotional issues that relate (affectively or symbolically) to the suffering seen.

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Inspiration…

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Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture (PSOT)

�  Since 1995, has served around 3,000 clients from close to 90 countries

�  Multi-disciplinary services: medical, psychiatric, psychological, and social services

Akinsulure-Smith, A.M., Keatley, E. & Rasmussen, A. (2012). Responding to secondary traumatic stress: A pilot study of torture treatment programs in the United States. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 25, 232-235.

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Next steps: Dire need for systematic interventions

ü Personal ü Professional ü Organizational

THANK YOU! Adeyinka M. Akinsulure-Smith, Ph.D. aakinsulure-smith@ccny.cuny.edu

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Selected References Akinsulure-Smith, A.M., Keatley, E. & Rasmussen, A. (2012). Responding to secondary

traumatic stress: A pilot study of torture treatment programs in the United States. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 25, 232-235.

Doukessa, L. & Byrne, M.K. (2003). Vicarious traumatization: Symptoms and predictors. Stress and Health, 19, 129-138.

Figley, C.R. (Ed.). (1995). Compassion fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder in those who treat the traumatized. New York: Brunner/Mazel.

Palm, K.M., Polusny, M.A., & Folletter, V.M. (2004). Vicarious traumatization: Potential hazards and Interventions for Disaster and Trauma Workers. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. 19 (1), 73-78.

Pearlman, L.A. (1995). Self-care for trauma therapists: Ameliorating vicarious traumatization. In B.H. Stamm (Ed.), Secondary traumatic stress: Self-care issues for clinicians, researchers, and educators, pp. 51-64. Lutherville, MD: Sidran Press.

Pearlman, L.A., Saakvitne, K.W., et al. (1995). Vicarious traumatization I: The cost of empathy. Ukiah, CA: Cavalcade Productions, Inc.

Saakvitne, K.W., Pearlman, L.A., & the Staff of the Traumatic Stress Institute (1996). Transforming the pain: A workbook on vicarious traumatization. New York: W.W. Norton.