Second-Hand Shock (Surviving & Overcoming Vicarious Trauma)

Helping professionals can experience burnout and compassion fatigue as a result of their work, but what about those suffering debilitating problems like depression, anxiety, addiction, obesity, or immune disorders? The cause could be vicarious trauma—a phenomenon that goes far beyond compassion fatigue or burnout.

Every time you interact with those you help, you are putting yourself at risk for vicarious trauma. Absorbing others’ trauma while controlling your own empathic response alters your neurochemistry and even the structure of your brain, negatively affecting your mind, body, and spirit.

Second-Hand Shock presents the Rapid Advance Process, a method of recovery created by the authors and used successfully with their own clients. The book includes The Aftershock Workbook, your step-by-step guide through the Rapid Advance Process. This second edition offers new information about how vicarious trauma can be worsened when helping professionals deny or minimize their personal trauma history—or overestimate their effectiveness in coping with it. The authors also explore the ways that emotional intelligence can protect you from vicarious trauma.

Second-Hand Shock offers acknowledgment, hope, and healing to millions of helping professionals. There is no need to suffer in silence. You can recognize, address, and recover from vicarious trauma.