The Power of Story

Providing therapeutic help to someone who has suffered trauma puts the therapist at risk for vicarious traumatization. It can leave the therapist with symptoms of either an acute or a posttraumatic stress response. Therapists are story listeners. One of the primary benefits a therapist provides clients is a safe place to tell their stories and to express their pain, thus diminishing their burden. This often leaves the therapist sharing the burden and the pain. Ms. Collins and Ms. Laughlin have created a process of self-care that helps prevent and alleviate vicarious traumatization. Through the process of story-telling and hearing others' stories, therapists can be relieved of the trauma they have absorbed.