Exploring the positive and negative vicarious 'lived' experience of long-term sexual assault counsellors working in the community

Scope: Overwhelmed by trauma and burdened by its effects, survivors of sexual violence frequently seek the assistance of professional therapists in their journey to healing. For the therapists charged with offering empathic support to these survivors their role can frequently be distressing. Encouragingly, there is a growing body of research highlighting the possibility for trauma therapists to derive personal and professional benefits from their work including the opportunity for posttraumatic growth following vicarious exposure to trauma narratives. What remains unclear is how long-term, experienced sexual violence therapists make meaning of their responses, both negative and positive, to exposure to sexual violence narratives. Purpose: This phenomenological study sought to explore the subjective interpretations of long-term, experienced sexual violence therapists. It is particularly interested in both the positive and negative meaning making they bring to their professional role from repeated exposure to the violent and traumatising narratives of their clients. Methodology: Four long-term sexual violence therapists participated in semi-structured interviews seeking their interpretations of the impact of working with survivors of sexual violence on their personal and professional lives. The transcribed interviews acted as the dataset, analysed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). IPA allowed for the detailed examination of the unique phenomenon under investigation to be explored through an idiographic, deductive and interpretative process. It sought each individual therapists’ “lived” experience. Results: One superordinate theme: Relational depth, overarched three subordinate themes: (a) Companions in sadness and loss; (b) Humble self-knowing; and (c) Going the integral distance. The superordinate theme encompassed the client-therapist relationship as both source of pain and source of psychological growth. The subordinate themes highlight the continuum of negative to positive interpreted meaning making for these therapists over time. Conclusions: This study offers unique insight into the way in which these long-term, experienced sexual violence therapists were able to redefine vicarious trauma responses and create personal and professional growth. It supports existing literature reflecting the inevitability of trauma work adversely impacting therapists. Further it extends the promising findings of previous studies reflecting the potential for vicarious posttraumatic growth in therapists. Implications of the larger work: This study highlights the central role of the client therapist relationship to both vicarious traumatisation and vicarious posttraumatic growth. It offers insights into relationally deep ‘meeting’ with clients and the possibility that the therapeutic relationship is at the heart of both vicarious traumatisation and vicarious posttraumatic growth acting as the gateway for vicarious trauma, as well as a place where overtime traumatic experiences may facilitate unexpected psychological growth.