WELLBEING & RESILIENCE
Dealing with vicarious Trauma SARAH EL SAYED ASSOCIATE, JONES HARLEY TOOLE
T
he Society’s Wellbeing and Resilience Committee chaired a seminar on Vicarious Trauma on Tuesday 16 March, 2021. The seminar was presented by Rebecca Abbott, social worker and founding director of Abbott Witness Services and was aimed at raising awareness of vicarious trauma in the legal profession, encouraging self-reflection and fostering a supportive work environment and culture. Whilst we might immediately think of ‘first responders’ such as emergency services workers when we think of vicarious trauma, it has come to be recognised that other professions, including the legal profession, can also be exposed and as a consequence may need support. Rebecca explored the concept of vicarious trauma and the effect this has on our professional and personal lives. Vicarious trauma can be described as a change in a person as a result of working with clients’ traumatic events. As we know, trauma can manifest rapidly or it can accumulate over time - and it can change the way we perceive the world and the people around us. The nature of our profession can often expose us both directly and indirectly to trauma through the traumatic events of our clients’ lives, such as domestic violence or abuse. Given the nature of our role as lawyers, and in particular those who practise in the criminal or family law jurisdictions, we are at a heightened risk of exposure to vicarious trauma. In addition to the nature of our role, there are other factors which are likely to increase one’s risk of exposure to vicarious trauma. These include prior traumatic experiences, working as a sole practitioner, difficulty expressing feelings, a lack of training and/or supervision in your job and lack of effective and supportive processes for discussing traumatic content. Rebecca highlighted the importance
of self-awareness and the role this plays in maintaining your mental health and wellbeing in practice. It is important to be able to identify the signs of vicarious trauma so that you can detect it in yourself and seek help when needed. Some signs of vicarious trauma include the encroachment of client and work demands on personal time, becoming pessimistic or developing an altered view of the world, becoming demoralised and questioning your professional effectiveness/competence, and self-medicating and/or substance abuse. It is good practice for your mental health and wellbeing to regularly take the time to pause, reflect and identify whether you have reached your body’s stress limit. One way to conceptualise your body’s limit is to imagine you have a bucket, which represents you and each of your individual stressors are represented by water. Each time a stressful event occurs in your life, water is poured into the bucket. If too much water is poured into the
bucket, it will overflow leaving you feeling overwhelmed. By taking the time to pause and reflect on your stress load you will be able to identify when your bucket may be getting full so that you can take some time out for yourself and prevent the onset of burnout. Rebecca concluded the webinar with a great tip to extend our awareness of our stress bucket to our friends or colleagues. If you notice that a friend or colleague is presenting signs that they are not okay or that their bucket may be full, buy them a coffee, place it on their desk and let them know you are there for them. This simple gesture will let them know you have noticed and you are there for them in solidarity and support. The Society offers practitioner support through the LawCare service, support groups and resource hubs. See https:// www.lawsocietysa.asn.au/Public/Lawyers/ Practitioner_Support/Menu.aspx for more information. July 2021 THE BULLETIN
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