Any social worker will confess that it is easy to experience vicarious trauma and burnout in the course of their duties. Burnout can be described as the furthest end of compassionate fatigue. It can develop into mental and physical injury. Burnout comes as a result of hearing or witnessing traumatic stories from clients which subsequently affect the recipient’s mental and physical capabilities. When these symptoms occur over a long period of time they lead to a situation where one loses his emphatic touch and starts experiencing the same symptoms like those of his/her client. It can lead to both mental and physical illness. Recovery from these symptoms requires a long time to effect (Richard and Burl, 2013).
On the other hand, vicarious trauma may result when a social worker experiences the same trauma as that of his/her client through hearing or witnessing traumatic stories. It may lead to post-traumatic stress symptoms similar those of the client. Symptoms such as intrusive imagery, traumatic dreams and other traumatic experiences may result. The social worker’s world view changes and aligns itself with that of the client. An example is when a totally confident social worker suddenly becomes doubtful and afraid. This is especially true when the help giver had a previous traumatic experience (Wagaman et al., 2015).
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However, compassion satisfaction, which is the ability to get satisfaction in whatever you do, can act as a buffer to burnout because it incorporates elements of empathy which lead to lower levels of burnout. An empathic social worker is not affected by the experiences of his client but rather embraces those experiences to understand the root cause of such conditions. He /she place himself/herself in the shoes of the client and try to understand the experiences of his/her client. It is a pleasure for a social worker to help his/her clients. Empathy is largely associated with compassion satisfaction. It is able to reduce or prevent burnout to any social worker because it is a positive attitude that derives pleasure in helping others. It is, therefore, important to incorporate elements of empathy into the training program of any social worker because it is a good mitigating measure against burnout (Roberts, 2005).
References
Wagaman, M., Geiger, J., Shockley, C. and Segal, E. (2015). The role of empathy in burnout, compassion satisfaction, and secondary traumatic stress among social workers. Social Work, 60 (3), 201-209.
Roberts, A. (2005). Crisis intervention handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Richard J. and Burl G. (2013) Crisis Intervention Strategies. Brooks/ Cole: Cengage Learning.
