Navigating Occupational Hazards: Supporting Helping Provider Health and Well-being

Despite counselor and counselor-in-training (CIT) health and wellness being mandated by the American Counseling Association (ACA, 2014 ACA code of ethics. Retrieved 10 June 2023, from https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/2014-code-of-ethics-finaladdress.pdf , 2014) Code of Ethics, helping professionals note ongoing challenges with monitoring and maintaining their well-being due to the demands of the work, most notably exposure to traumatic content and the continual use of empathic attunement (Gleason and Hays, Couns Educ Superv 58(3):177–194, 2019). The literature identifies the effects of exposure to traumatic events and continuous use of empathic attunement as compassion fatigue (CF), secondary traumatic stress (STS), vicarious traumatization (VT), and burnout (BO)—commonly referred to as “occupational hazards” that will impact all helping professionals at some point in their career (Can and Watson, Prof Couns 9(4):285–297, 2019; Cosden et al., Subst Abuse 37(4):619–624, 2016). These conditions compromise the health and wellness of counselors and CITs, which leads to impairment and ethical violations (Quitangon and Evces, Vicarious trauma and disaster mental health: understanding risks and promoting resilience. Routledge, 2015). Similarly, clinicians treating clients who have experienced trauma are vulnerable to experiencing both vicarious trauma and vicarious post-traumatic growth (PTG). This chapter reviews the strengths and vulnerabilities attributed to trauma response counseling professionals (TRCPs) with a personal history of trauma, as they present with the duality of increased vulnerability to VT and resilience as a protective factor (Sexton et al., J Affect Disord 174:562–568, 2015). Hence, TRCPs and CITs must engage in preventative and restorative self-care activities (Salloum et al., Child Youth Serv Rev 49:54–61, 2015). In this chapter, readers gain an understanding of vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout for TRCPs and CITs as they relate to the maintenance of counselor health and wellness and its application to trauma-informed ethical decision-making. There is an emphasis on the ethical, legal, multicultural, and spiritual implications for wellness and self-care at the personal, professional, organizational, and societal levels. The reader will learn trauma-informed self-care (TISC) intervention strategies and models of prevention and treatment of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue through the clinician’s lens (Salloum et al., Child Youth Serv Rev 49:54–61, 2015).