The BRAVE Blog: Resources and Support for Trauma Therapists

Trauma treatment is complicated. Just like there are lots of different therapeutic angles to come from there are also a zillion ways that prescribers attack Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) with medications. But how do you know if your client’s regimen is a solid one? Could it be causing more harm than good?

Ever felt like that age-old advice to “leave work at work” is nothing more than a guilt trip, setting you up to feel like a failure the moment you think about a client outside your office? Read more for a shame-free way to support all your roles as a trauma therapist and human. 

As trauma therapists, we know that vicarious trauma is a normal part of the job; You can’t walk through water and expect not to get wet. But when you add the layer of racial trauma—whether personally experienced or witnessed—the weight on our shoulders can feel even heavier.

Vicarious trauma is a normal part of being a trauma therapist. But what happens when we get hit by the double whammy of vicarious trauma AND global crises? You don’t have to be sucked under my the overwhelm - check out this week’s blog for practical support!

As trauma therapists, we know that vicarious trauma is a normal part of the job; You can’t walk through water and expect not to get wet. But when you add the layer of racial trauma—whether personally experienced or witnessed—the weight on our shoulders can feel even heavier.

Whether you are a trauma therapist or not, you may have heard the terms Vicarious Trauma, Compassion Fatigue, and/or Secondary Traumatic Stress used in seemingly the same ways. That makes it seem like they are interchangeable but, news flash! They’re not.

The Johari Window is about self-awareness but this week you’ll see how my brain has worked to adapt this age-old technique to help you Name Vicarious Trauma and share these experiences with the people who mean the most to you.

It’s no surprise that I think all trauma therapists should name our vicarious trauma on the regular. And, if you're anything like me, you're very happy to ignore VT and burnout signs!

To get myself out, or even to prevent spiraling, I realized that I needed a better reason to check in with my VT on the regular.

Ever felt like that age-old advice to “leave work at work” is nothing more than a guilt trip, setting you up to feel like a failure the moment you think about a client outside your office? Read more for a shame-free way to support all your roles as a trauma therapist and human. 

Vicarious trauma is a normal part of being a trauma therapist. But what happens when we get hit by the double whammy of vicarious trauma AND global crises? You don’t have to be sucked under my the overwhelm - check out this week’s blog for practical support!

"As we ask our clients to trust us with their most profound narratives, there exists a reluctance to extend the same trust within our professional community." Liliana Baylon, LMFT-S, RPT-S, shines a light on the silence around therapists' humanity and the need for a shift towards authenticity in our practice.

This is a special time of year when everything is coming back to life again. As I am working on getting our garden back in shape, I can't help but be reminded of how this can also be an important time of renewal for us as trauma therapists - a time to weed out vicarious trauma and plant seeds of vicarious resilience!

Being a trauma therapists means we wear many hats, and we often try to keep them all nice, neat, and separated. This week, we have a Guest Blog post from Sarah Sanders, LMFT, and she shows us the power of showing up as an integrated self - trauma therapist side and all!

What if Vicarious Resilience could be your renewable source of self-care, the antithesis to weaponized self-care? It’s possible when you can recognize, install, and enhance Vicarious Resilience!

We both know there is a deeper reason you keep doing this work. For me, it's because I really do see people get better.

What’s your reason?

Supervision is a sacred space with trainees.

Of course, the main goal is to process cases and strengthen clinical skills, but supervision is so much more than reporting updates and being told what to do next. It is an opportunity for Vicarious Resilience.