The caring community

Question:  How should we respond when we, the parents, get criticised by those whose intention is to support us?

What is going on here?  This is the secondary trauma trap.

Trauma is invasive, virus-like and destructive, affecting everyone connected with the primary trauma victim.  Daniel Siegel says 'Trauma causes ripples of devastation across time and human boundaries'.  These ripples mostly affect  people who care.  In particular those affected are 1. those who are empathic and open, and 2. those who have experienced trauma themselves.  This means that adoptive parents, carers or those who work in caring professions are more likely to be affected by the trauma of the hurt child.

The effect on us as secondary trauma (and I count myself here) if not recognised,  is debilitating, deskilling and causes us to want to avoid the situations that give us these feelings.  If recognised, the feelings and energy are the instruments with which we can have healthy empathy without being sucked into the whirlpool of traumatic material (ours, the child's, our family's the professionals' - all whizzing around - not to be underestimated).

If professional are affected without recognising it, they may look for someone to blame for the way they are feeling.  Their belief in themselves as effective at their jobs is being threatened and that is scary.  The obvious people to criticise are those closest to the child - you, or professionals from another agency - us.  But there are some wonderful professionals who do recognise the effects of secondary trauma, and meet parents with openness and empathy, leading to better communication and more effective support.  (beware though - secondary trauma is pervasive and needs continual monitoring)

Step 1:  Look after yourself.  Recognise the difficulties as part of secondary trauma affecting you and the professionals together.  What can you do to counteract this?  How can you take care of yourself?   Who smiles at you?
Step 2:  Recognise that the professionals want to offer care and support.  What they are communicating to you is that this is difficult and threatening to their professionalism.  How do we help reduce people's anxiety?  How do we increase people's feeling of being appreciated?

This is the challenge we, at Catchpoint, face all the time.  How do we get everyone around the child (therapeutic circle) to begin to trust each other, support each other and avoid the secondary trauma traps.  

We haven't found the ultimate answer yet, but we keep working at it.  We believe the key is in understanding trauma and the effects of trauma.  If this understanding is shared, then the energy from the 'ripples of devastation' stop being negative (blaming and splitting) and become positive (inclusive and integrating).   It's hard but it works.

Let me know what you think please

Happy New Year
Joy