“Horrible Slime Stories” When Serving Victims: The Labor of Role-taking and Secondary Trauma Exposure

Abstract

The emotional and psychological consequences associated with providing services to traumatized others have been well established with extant scholarship highlighting these workers’ susceptibility to vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress. But less is known about the underlying interactional processes by which symptoms of secondary trauma emerge. This research investigates the consequences of taking the role of a person who is victimized and experiencing emotional turmoil by analyzing interviews with workers who serve victims seeking legal services. Role-taking is the process of mentally and affectively placing the self in the position of another, understanding another’s perspective. Workers described listening to victims’ experiences or coworkers’ accounts of difficult cases as being “slimed.” Those engaging in both cognitive and empathic role-taking often struggled to “shake” this content and became susceptible to mirroring the distress of the traumatized clients and coworkers. In response to this exposure, workers often shared troubling intakes or cases with coworkers as a type of interpersonal emotion management. Workers who provided emotional support to colleagues often experienced indirect exposure to trauma on two fronts: in the service of clients who had experienced intimate partner violence and from coworkers. Thus, those best able to role-take with victims or coworkers are most likely to experience greater secondary trauma exposure and its potential toll.