Secondary trauma describes the impact on professionals when you work with people who have experienced trauma.  You may begin to experience some trauma related reactions. You may develop negative ideas about people, the world and have worries about your safety. Talking about your feelings can really help.

Compassion fatigue means it is hard to feel care and concern for others and is linked with negative physical and emotional changes. It can result from working with many people who are suffering or traumatized. If you are not able to refuel and refresh yourself, the “cost of caring” can be great. Caring for others takes energy and thought. You could feel hopeless, depressed, highly stressed or anxious. Try to do other positive activities outside of work.

Burnout occurs when you experience low satisfaction at work, feel exhausted and lack motivation. This could relate to too much work, feeling overwhelmed, feeling powerless, or poor relationships with colleagues, a supervisor or management. If you do not deal with burnout, it can lead to physical and mental illness. Experiencing burnout does not necessarily mean that your view of the world and your safety has been damaged, or that you can’t feel empathy for others. You can change job-related burnout by changing your job or the way that you work. For example, you could map out roles and responsibilities with your work team and explore how to keep good boundaries and best share the work load. However, this does not work for compassion fatigue and secondary trauma if you are still doing the same kind of work.

To find out more about with these issues, you can go to articles on secondary traumatisation, compassion fatigue and burnout There are also tips for relaxation like a breathing exercise. Try to be assertive about what you need. We want you to be well and do the best work you can!

Where can you get help?

If you think you need urgent help for this kind of stress, please contact the SADAG helpline on 0800 12 13 14 or the Lifeline helpline on 0861 322 322

Acknowledgement: Johnson & Johnson and Praekelt for use of the content created