Pathways to Resilience III: Beyond Nature vs. Nurture

Vicarious Resiliency in Cultural Context
Speaker: Pilar Hernandez-Wolfe
Therapists working with traumatized populations may experience the impact of their clients’ emotional pain in the process of providing therapy. They may also learn vicariously from their clients about overcoming adversity. The concept of vicarious resilience describes a specific resilience process occurring as a result of therapists’ work with trauma survivors. It refers to the transformations in the therapists’ inner experience resulting from empathetic engagement with the client’s trauma material. To date, vicarious resilience has only been researched in the traumatic stress field and it may be a unique consequence of trauma work. Vicarious trauma and vicarious resilience are processes that illuminate the complex potential for therapeutic work both to fatigue and to heal. In addition, these processes develop in the social and cultural context of the therapeutic relationship. Intersections of diversity (class, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, ability) shape therapy practice in general and therapeutic encounters specifically. These dimensions are explored as they apply to therapeutic practices to offer therapists a cultural equity framework in which to understand vicarious trauma and vicarious resilience.