How To Prevent Vicarious Trauma
5 Foundational Tools You Can Use to Protect Yourself
Enroll in Course
As a Registered Psychologist who specializes in trauma, I regularly bear witness to difficult and painful stories. At the same time, I have found a number of ways to protect myself from becoming traumatized by the work I do every day. I have spoken with other helping professionals such as doctors and nurses, social workers, educators, and other therapists about how do we do this. How do we stand alongside the people we help and the sometimes horrifying situations they face without becoming traumatized ourselves?
In this course, I'll provide some information on the signs of vicarious trauma and how anyone who works in a helping field can be affected by it. Through a series of short videos you can complete within an hour, you'll receive 5 specific ideas to protect yourself from vicarious trauma. I’m hoping that by sharing what I’ve leaned it will contribute to a dialogue that continues even after today.
The effects of vicarious trauma can be physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. At the same time, there is reason for hope. The tools I'm sharing with you are evidence-based and I use them every week in my practice with clients.
Your Instructor
Nicole Perry is a Registered Psychologist whose approach is collaborative and feminist at its heart. She specializes shame resilience, setting boundaries, and healing trauma. Nicole understands that many of us are coping with overwhelming feelings of guilt and shame that keep us from believing we deserve good things, and works to guide her clients toward a more compassionate way forward. Nicole approaches her healing work with warmth and curiosity, and offers a safe container for working with difficult experiences.
Nicole provides counselling to individuals and groups in addition to her online courses, focused mainly in the LGBTQ* community in Edmonton.