Secondary Traumatic Stress
Secondary Traumatic Stress: Supporting People
who Work to Build Healing Systems
A healing-centered organization promotes the well-being of both the people they serve and the people who work there. Professionals who work with people that have experienced trauma may experience secondary traumatic stress. Secondary traumatic stress is “the emotional duress that results when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another” (NCTSN).
Anywhere from 6% to 26% of therapists working with traumatized populations, and up to 50% of child welfare workers, are at high risk of secondary traumatic stress or the related conditions of PTSD and vicarious trauma.
-National Childhood Traumatic Stress Network
- Anxiety
- Dissociation
- Over-identification with clients
- Feelings of isolation
- Minimizing
- Feelings of hopelessness
- Guilt
- Difficulty establishing/maintaining professional boundaries with clients
- Chronic exhaustion
Secondary traumatic stress can contribute to burnout. Burnout is a complex problem that involves feelings of extreme exhaustion, detachment and cynicism, and feeling ineffective. Burnout can cause professionals in fields such as public service and health care to leave the workforce.
To support these helping professionals, leadership must make systemic changes, such as changes in policies and practices that support their well-being. Organizational leaders can play a key role in this by creating systems that focus on the well-being of helpers.
The following list of resources provides tools to help organizations identify, prevent, and intervene when secondary traumatic stress occurs.
If you or someone you love are experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Hotline.
- Call or text 988
- Chat online at 988lifeline.org