Navigating the Intersection of Racial Trauma and Vicarious Trauma: A Guide for Trauma Therapists

As trauma therapists, experiencing vicarious trauma is a normal part of our profession.

(I know that’s not popular opinion, but how could you expect to walk through water and not get wet? Same thing goes for experiencing vicarious trauma as a trauma therapist.)

Then, when you add the intersection of vicarious trauma and racial trauma, it’s a double whammy to our systems that is not often acknowledged or addressed. 

So many trauma therapists experience racial trauma themselves and/or witness its impact on our dear clients. Because we can’t ignore or hide from the intersection of racial trauma and vicarious trauma, we must learn how to understand and navigate this space.

The importance of creating a space to acknowledge and honor the weight of racial trauma and vicarious trauma for trauma therapists is why I have partnered with Tawanna Woolfolk, LCSW, to host our quarterly Racial Trauma and Vicarious Trauma Spaceholder Meetings. 

In these meetings, we get to show up as messy humans who are consenting to be in a shared space of mutual respect and open communication.

Each time we meet, Tawanna and I are reinvigorated in our passion for this work as we get to witness the power of collective support among trauma therapists from all backgrounds. Whether they are from marginalized racial or ethnic minority groups, other marginalized communities, or belong to the majority culture with significant privileges, these spaces foster respectful imperfection and learning. 

Understanding Racial Trauma

Before we get into the intersection of racial trauma and vicarious trauma, let’s make sure we are speaking the same language when it comes to these terms, starting with racial trauma.

Racial trauma occurs when individuals experience racism, whether in direct and obvious ways or more subtly. Obvious forms of racial trauma include experiencing direct verbal or physical attacks because of one’s race or ethnicity, while more insidious forms often occur via microaggressions—small, often subtle actions or remarks that convey prejudice and put someone down.

My journey into exploring the intersection of racial trauma and vicarious trauma began with my work at the University of California, San Francisco, at the Children's Hospital in Oakland. During a workshop series on Naming, Taming, and Reframing Vicarious Trauma, the team was proactive in requesting a particular focus on the intersection of racial trauma and vicarious trauma as they had experienced such magic impacts personally, as providers of color, and by witnessing their patients’ experiences. 

The clinicians were so courageous in sharing what it was like to observe what racial trauma was doing to their patients, especially those from communities of color, and on themselves as healers witnessing these injustices. They shared stories like seeing a Black family receive substandard medical care purely based on their race and told me how profoundly this affected the entire team's well-being.

I am forever grateful to them for highlighting the intersection of racial trauma and vicarious trauma and for underscoring the need of providers in this area.

Understanding Vicarious Trauma

Continuing with shared language and definitions, I’m going to do a very brief overview of vicarious trauma. For more on vicarious trauma, head to our dedicated section of the blog here. 

Vicarious trauma is a normal experience for trauma therapists. 

Yep, I said it - Vicarious Trauma is a NORMAL part of our experience as trauma therapists. 

That’s because vicarious trauma rises up through our deep empathic engagement with our clients as we serve them in their trauma work. This empathic engagement is crucial for effective therapy, but it also means we absorb some of the trauma our clients are working through - we’re sponges soaking up the vicarious trauma. 

While vicarious trauma is a normal part of our work, it can cause major problems if we don't have realistic and sustainable ways to manage it—or as I often say, to wring out our vicarious trauma sponge.

When left unmanaged, vicarious trauma can lead to emotional, physical, relational, and occupational problems. 

• Emotionally, therapists may feel anxious, on edge, or depressed. 

• Physically, the stress can manifest as sleep difficulties, headaches, stomach aches, and even a compromised immune system. 

• Relational impacts include increased isolation, withdrawal, and conflicts in personal and professional relationships. 

• Occupationally, therapists might avoid certain aspects of their work or overwork to distract themselves from the trauma they're holding onto.

I know this is a quick a dirty overview - remember there are even more resources on the blog, and you can check out each dedicated section here.

While we’re at it, do you have the free BRAVE Vicarious Trauma Tracker yet…? Grab it here so you can best understand how vicarious trauma shows up for you and to start building your plan to wring out your vicarious trauma sponge.

The Intersection of Racial Trauma and Vicarious Trauma

Ok, now that we’re speaking the same language when it comes to defining racial trauma and vicarious trauma, let’s talk about how they overlap or intersect. 

The intersection of racial trauma and vicarious trauma can present a major challenge for trauma therapists, especially in the following two scenarios:

1. Trauma Therapists Who Are People of Color

For trauma therapists of color, experiencing racial trauma in daily life is sadly a common reality, whether in professional or personal interactions. This ongoing racial trauma adds a heavy burden, already taxing the bandwidth of these trauma therapists of color. 

Then, add the weight of being a trauma therapist, serving their dear clients, and naturally absorbing vicarious trauma in the process. 

As if that wasn’t a busy enough intersection, when their clients are also people of color, the work often involves addressing racial trauma, even if it's not the primary focus. 

This creates a compounded effect where the trauma therapist is managing their own racial trauma while also absorbing the vicarious trauma from their clients' experiences, which often include racial trauma.

2. Trauma Therapists Who Are Not People of Color

White trauma therapists may not experience racial trauma personally, but they often work with clients of color who do. For therapists committed to activism and allyship, supporting clients of color involves engaging deeply with their experiences of racial trauma. 

This deep empathic engagement can then amplify the experience of vicarious trauma, as these trauma therapists navigate both the identified trauma and the underlying racial trauma. The intensity of this work can make the vicarious trauma more pronounced, highlighting the importance of recognizing and addressing these intersections.

The Importance of Addressing Both Racial Trauma and Vicarious Trauma

Did you notice that busy intersection I just described??

I know it’s a lot to take in, but at the intersection of racial trauma and vicarious trauma is the reality that we must recognize and address both —not only for our well-being but also for the effective care of our clients. 

If we don’t we can run into a lot of problems as the trauma therapists, which is going to have a negative impact on our the ways we can care for our clients.

Impact on Trauma Therapists

If we as trauma therapists fail to acknowledge the dual impact of racial trauma and vicarious trauma, we can easily begin to feel stuck or frustrated in their practice. 

What happens is that, despite using all our strategies to manage vicarious trauma, nothing seems to be helping. We are still feeling totally weighed down by our work and the world. 

[insert image of being weighed down]

This could be for any number of reasons, but if we’re not addressing the intersection of racial trauma and vicarious trauma we are likely missing a lot. This can lead to a more severe trajectory of the trauma therapist trauma response, going from normal experiences of vicarious trauma to more debilitating experiences of compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and even burnout.

Impact on Clients

For clients, a trauma therapist's failure to address both types of trauma can hinder their therapeutic progress. This is likely not intentional by the trauma therapist, but we have to be honest and name this serious consequence. 

Clients of color, in particular, may feel their experiences are not fully understood or validated if their therapist does not acknowledge the racial trauma component. This can weaken the therapeutic alliance and the overall effectiveness of the therapy.

How To Get Started with Racial Trauma and Vicarious Trauma

Managing the intersection of racial trauma and vicarious trauma effectively simply cannot be done in isolation - it requires a robust support network. 

Having a community of fellow trauma therapists is vital to help you wring out your vicarious trauma sponge more completely through acknowledging and addressing the combined impact of racial trauma. 

When you’re able to really wring out your vicarious trauma sponge, you can strive towards advocacy and activism, giving back through reflective supervision and peer support, and pursuing ongoing education and training. 

Having a safe and supportive community of fellow trauma therapists is essential in this work because it means you have a space where you’re truly understood and supported without having to explain the unique challenges of being a trauma therapist.

This need for community is a primary reason behind the formation of The BRAVE Trauma Therapists Collective and why Tawanna and I started the Racial Trauma and Vicarious Trauma Quarterly Spaceholder Meetings.

We knew the larger trauma therapist community needed a dedicated and safe space for addressing the intersection of racial trauma and vicarious trauma and we were ready to lead! 

When you join us in one of these meetings, you’ll notice how we prioritize participant safety, which allows for deep and meaningful conversations about experiencing and witnessing racial trauma alongside vicarious trauma. 

All of our Racial Trauma and Vicarious Trauma Quarterly Spaceholder Meetings are FREE and we’re super excited to now be able to offer 2 CEUs to anyone who wants to purchase them!

It's through these supportive communities that true healing and connection can occur, enabling us as trauma therapists to keep doing the work we love. 

Next Steps

We invite you to join us for the upcoming Racial Trauma and Vicarious Trauma Quarterly Spaceholder Meeting on Monday, August 26th from 9 to 11 AM Pacific Time, 11 AM to 1 PM Central Time, and 12 to 2 PM Eastern Time in the US. 

This event is FREE, with an option to purchase two CEU credits upon registration. 

Sign up today and join this beautiful community as we journey together through our own healing and support.