Vicarious Traumatization

The principal term in the traumatic stress field for the emotional and health impacts of a client’s traumatic experiences and symptoms on therapists and other empathically connected helping professionals. Often used interchangeably with the overlapping nursing construct of compassion fatigue. Given its immediate popularity and widespread use among therapists, this term rendered obsolete the earlier construct of secondary victimization. While largely synonymous with secondary trauma, some differentiate VT by its greater emphasis on the gradual toll of trauma on professionals versus family members and intimate others. Frequently attributed to Drs. Laurie Pearlman and Karen Saakvitne given their definitive 1995 publication on this topic, this term was actually coined in 1990 by Drs. Lisa McCann and Laurie Pearlman