secondary trauma
Absorbed emotional harm
Secondary trauma is psychological distress that comes from exposure to others' traumatic experiences rather than direct experience of trauma yourself.
It typically affects people who work with trauma survivors—therapists, emergency responders, social workers, journalists covering atrocities.
Also called vicarious trauma or compassion fatigue: After years of treating combat veterans, she developed secondary trauma symptoms herself.
- vicariousExperienced through another
- compassion fatigueEmotional depletion from overexposure
- burnoutChronic occupational depletion
- emotional tollMental cost of hardship
- witnessOne who attests
absorb · helplessness · nightmares · hypervigilance · empathy · wounded healer · caregiver · therapist · firsthand · exposure · intrusive thoughts · emotional exhaustion · boundaries · spillover · secondhand · overwhelm · numbness · flashbacks
- traumaabuse, abandonment, acute stress, amnesia, attachment disorder
- burnoutburned out, burnt out, burn out, burning out, burnout
- workplace hazardsstress, burnout, fire hazard, overwork, back pain
- teacher burnoutteacher burnout, emotional exhaustion, exhaustion, overwhelm, overwork
- workplace stressjob stress, work stress, occupational stress, job burnout, job anxiety
secondary traumapost-traumatic growth
Development sparked by crisis
resilience · recovery · healing · flourishing · integration
secondary, secondarily, second, secondly, trauma, traumas, traumatic, traumatize, traumatized