Department

Social Work

Date

2014

Degree Name

Master of Social Work (M.S.W.)

Type of Paper/Work

Clinical research paper

Advisor

Pa Der Vang

Abstract

Secondary trauma is something that any clinician could experience if they work with clients who have a trauma history. This is where the clinician exhibits symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder by hearing about the details of a client’s trauma. There has been much research done on possible protective and predictive factors for secondary trauma. One of these protective factors is receiving supervision. Supervision is time spent with a clinician’s supervisor to debrief about clients, talk about work in general, receive feedback from documentation and client interactions, and receive psychoeducation from the supervisor about relevant client issues. It is the debriefing about clients that can be especially helpful for secondary trauma. A quantitative survey was sent to clinicians who work with clients who have experienced trauma. This survey asked questions about supervision, self-care, outside hobbies, etc. This survey also included the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale, which measured symptoms of secondary trauma in three categories: intrusion, avoidance, and arousal. There was a significant negative correlation between receiving supervision and arousal symptoms. No other analysis comparing secondary trauma to supervision was significant. There was a significant relationship between spending quality time with friends and lower rates of secondary trauma, however.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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