by Jill Bassett-Cameron
Campus housing professionals are routinely exposed to others’ trauma. It’s a fact of the job. Maybe it occurs while on duty or while working in the office. It can come from a student or colleague who finds them to be a safe sounding board. Perhaps they are first on the scene to assist with an incident or must insert themselves as a mandated reporter. They are crisis managers and supervisors whose staff can witness traumatic experiences that range from a fraught interpersonal relationship or a violent sexual incident to a physical altercation or a natural disaster.
Regardless of the incident, higher education professionals are trained to assess and evaluate the situation before utilizing institutional protocols, ensuring compliance, and limiting liability. Additionally, they strive to do so with care, compassion, resources, options, and empathy, all while utilizing the framework of student development theories ingrained through their educational background, lived experiences, and training. But after completing the required reports and case notes, how often do they ask themselves, “How am I doing?”
My story occurred when I was a 26-year-old hall director at Southern Connecticut State University, with all of three years of professional experience. It was September 27, 2006, and my staff was preparing the residence hall to host a cultural program with food booths, fun, and positive energy. During the event, two residents informed me that their roommate didn’t appear to be breathing. I rushed to the room, and before I opened the door, I heard one of them say to me, “Jill, I think he is dead.” I told them to stay outside as I entered the room alone. Before I saw his body, I smelled the air and teared up, knowing what had happened. It was evident that the student had passed, but I still checked his pulse and called 911 as I knelt by his side. I observed the foam coming from his mouth. To this day, I can remember everything about that room, that scene, the weather, what I was wearing, and hugging the roommates as I attempted to comfort them in this terrible situation.
In the days following the tragedy, I stopped sleeping. My supervisor encouraged me to take advantage of the employee assistance program. While meeting with my assigned counselor, I provided details as if I was reading my incident report aloud. She noted that my memories seemed to be extremely vivid, and I agreed. She then asked me how I felt about the memories. Despite reliving the scene over and over, I hadn’t thought about it in those terms before. I immediately started to cry. I told her that I was most concerned about my students and staff. I explained how I had been working with hundreds of students who disclosed how they were doing, sharing their own stories regarding death, including suicide and other triggering subjects. These feelings spilled out like a valve had been opened in a dam. I explained to the therapist that helping those other students was part of my job. That was when she told me that not only was I experiencing my own post-traumatic shock from actually discovering the student’s body, but I was also dealing with vicarious trauma from helping others through the situation.
Considering that even simply reading my account of that day could result in vicarious trauma, it is apparent that it must be a concern for most housing professionals. Those who may not think they have experienced vicarious trauma could be in denial or have not been educated properly on how the body responds to it.
Vicarious traumatization, also sometimes called secondary traumatic stress, is defined as the negative feelings that occur when a person repeatedly witnesses or hears stories about traumatic things that happen to other people. Researchers describe these negative effects as including an ongoing sense of fear, sleep difficulties, intrusive images, or avoidance of reminders of the person’s traumatic experiences. Other indirect effects could include flashbacks, dreams, or intrusive thoughts. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network suggests that other indicators of vicarious trauma include the inability to embrace complexity, the inability to listen, hypervigilance, hopelessness, anger and cynicism, sleeplessness, fear, chronic exhaustion, physical ailments, minimizing, and guilt. Other indicators may include anxiety, disconnection, avoidance of social contact, becoming judgmental, depression, somatization, and disrupted beliefs about self and others. All of this is to say that there are “costs of caring,” as coined by traumatologist Charles Figley, and housing professionals need to be aware of “the deep physical, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion that can result from working day to day in an intense caregiving environment.”
Psychiatrist and trauma expert Christine Courtois suggested that professionals who routinely provide services to victims – such as those in the medical, law enforcement, clergy, social services, mental health, emergency relief, and education fields – are more likely to face vicarious trauma. I would argue that housing and student affairs staff should be among those numbers, which was part of what motivated my choice of a research topic when it came time to pursue my doctorate degree.
For the research that went into my dissertation, Vicarious Trauma in Higher Education for Those Engaged with Sexual Misconduct (Title IX) Cases, I asked 253 participants, “If you feel that you have experienced some vicarious trauma due to your Title IX case management experience, please share an example of your experience.” Of those, 126 (49.61%) took me up on the offer. For those who reported that they had experienced the indicators of vicarious trauma, the two most frequent symptoms were stress (53.8%) and anxiety (41.5%). Their anecdotes also suggested that issues related to sleep, nightmares, and dreams were frequent symptoms, and they shared intense descriptions of how their vicarious trauma would negatively impact their relationships and attitudes outside of work.
Some of the more shocking disclosures included no longer being able to watch certain triggering television programs such as “Law and Order: SVU” or, since working with Title IX cases, starting to look at people – particularly men – more suspiciously. Research participants explained that they no longer went out alone at night, found themselves to be hypervigilant, and had reduced interest in being intimate with their partner when they returned home from their work day. One person said their work stress and high levels of unhappiness contributed to their divorce. Another said that they no longer felt like their home was a safe refuge, as that residence hall was where a student had been sexually assaulted. Examples like these demonstrate the need to learn strategies for coping with the negative effects of these jobs.
In my research, I also learned that vicarious trauma should not be measured in comparison to the severity of the original traumatic incident. In 2020 I published an article along with Michael Taberski, currently the vice president for student and campus life at SUNY Geneseo. In it, he recounted his personal experience supporting the campus response to a shooting. Fortunately, nobody was killed, but that hardly lessened the stress and trauma he and others experienced. Coincidentally, about a month later, campuses nationwide would shut down in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While this trauma may not have felt as immediate as that of being in an active shooter incident, it certainly was just as weighty. These experiences support research conclusions that vicarious trauma does not always correlate to the severity of the trauma shared – but it does correlate to the level of one’s protective factors, lived experiences, and demographics. This is a positive influence because, while it may be impossible to avoid vicarious trauma or to alter one’s lived experiences and demographics, there still are steps one can take to increase protective factors and reduce negative responses.
While it sounds contradictory, one of the best approaches to alleviating vicarious trauma is to share details and feelings with others. It is important to note that talking to a partner, friend, colleague, mentor, or therapist is not as likely to cause vicarious trauma for a number of reasons. First, they are hearing the details third hand, providing a buffer system of sorts. Recounting the incident will likely include fewer and less vivid details. And the individuals hearing this version likely are not as emotionally invested in those who were initially affected by the incident.
Researchers in the social services field suggest that those in the helping professions need to understand the risk factors and indirect effects of trauma in order to identify, prevent, and/or minimize its effects. In recent years I have presented on this topic to numerous higher education programs, and conversations during these workshops have led me to learn more about concepts like mapping personal responses to trauma and understanding how vicarious trauma folds into the framework of Constructivist Self-Development Theory (CSDT).
In the early 1990s, CSDT theorists provided a deeper understanding of vicarious trauma by developing an outline to better understand variations of individual differences to trauma responses. In these cases, individuals create their reality through developing cognitive schemas or, as a 1992 article by Lisa McCann and Laurie Anne Pearlman phrased it, “beliefs, expectations, and assumptions about oneself, other people, and the world.” There are five components to the theory that individuals can consider as they reflect on the source of their vicarious trauma and analyze if their frame of reference has changed or been challenged. The first is self-capacities, which manifest through the ability to process emotions, feel worthy of love, and love others. The second is ego resources, an individual’s capacity for empathy and self-awareness. The third, psychological needs and cognitive schemes, includes intimacy, esteem, power, trust, safety, and independence as well as individual beliefs, assumptions, and expectations. The last component, memory and prospection, may manifest as flashbacks or fragmented thought processes that are not only disjointed but also accompanied by a disproportionate amount of emotion.
Since conducting workshops and educating others about CSDT, I have noticed that the stories of its impact span numerous disciplines but display the same themes: lack of sleep and an inability to process emotions produced from work trauma and, on the positive side, a recognition that learning about vicarious trauma validates their feelings. As one participant explained, “The word I would use is ‘normalcy.’ It made me feel like what I was experiencing was not in solitude. It made me recognize that my feeling this way is actually a good thing; it is because I care. It has allowed me to reframe my view of my work.”
A useful resource for housing professionals in combating vicarious trauma is the Professional Quality of Life Scale developed by Beth Hudnall Stamm. Originally designed for healthcare and social workers, the system explores concepts such as compassion fatigue, burnout, and moral distress. It also details fundamental self-care skills such as deep breathing, setting boundaries, remaining grounded, and intentional avoidance. One of the concepts addressed in the quality of life scale that can aid housing professionals is learning how to increase compassion satisfaction. This is best understood as the pleasure derived from doing the work well, having positive work relationships, and seeing positive results.
Another useful strategy is to create individual rituals that connect to the five senses. This sensory care tool has been able to help professionals recenter themselves during heightened moments of vicarious trauma. This pairs well with other self-care health habits such as going to the gym, walking, journaling, and remembering to eat. Supervisors and organizations can support group care by taking steps such as not booking meetings during lunchtime and encouraging professional development. Those supervising younger, less seasoned professionals who are female should be mindful that they measure higher on vicarious trauma scales. Those in that demographic should also advocate for what they need when they need it.
During a time when a number of talented professionals are leaving higher education and residential life as a career path, it is even more vital that the profession explore and incorporate strategies proven to help prevent burnout. To work toward that goal, it is important to remember a number of factors. First is that everyone has a different response to vicarious trauma, and it doesn’t matter if the trauma shared is severe or moderate, since the vicarious trauma is tied to the individual. Vicarious trauma does not just go away, and others’ experiences should not be denied. And, finally, while experiencing vicarious trauma is a sign that one is a compassionate, empathetic professional who is doing the job well, the field should avoid the mindset that this trauma is simply part of the job.
After a few more meetings with my therapist and continuing to recount the horrible events of that day, we began to discuss what could be done to alleviate some of those negative memories. Searching my feelings, I realized that I could not look at the outfit that I wore that day without it triggering dark clouds of emotion. After considering throwing it away or even burning it, I chose instead to donate it to a local shelter. While it symbolized one of my worst days, perhaps it could find a new home and help someone else.
Jill Bassett-Cameron is the senior equity and inclusion officer and Title IX coordinator at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain. She often presents and offers training on the subject of vicarious trauma.