This workshop draws on interviews with sixty-three welfare, health and legal professionals in Australia to consider the salutogenic dynamics of work with women with experiences of complex trauma and dissociation. The rewards of trauma work have been documented in the vicarious resilience literature, which explains how trauma workers are inspired by and learn from their clients. Participants in our study experienced such benefits. However, they also described what we term “vicarious resistance”. Resistance is a key concept in radical social work tradition.

Our research suggests that, for experienced complex trauma workers, effective practice is often underpinned by an ethics of care that counters resource-constrained and transactional health service models. Participants described a relational model of trauma practice that facilitates personal growth for themselves and their clients. They situated the negative effects of trauma work within a posture of authenticity and compassion connected to the meaningfulness of their work with trauma-affected people. We suggest that trauma professionals revaluing of care labour is a form of vicarious resistance, complicating the dichotomy of vicarious trauma and vicarious resilience, and bringing the social and political aspects of trauma practice into view.

In this workshop, we will present our findings and then invite participants to consider and contribute their own thoughts about the enriching and meaningful dimensions of their trauma practice, and whether the concept of “vicarious resistance” helps to articulate aspects of their professional experience.