Vicarious Resilience: A New Concept in Work With

Those Who Survive Trauma

PILAR HERNAŁNDEZ, PH.D.w
DAVID GANGSEI, PH.D.z
DAVID ENGSTROM, PH.D.‰

This study explores the formulation of a new concept: vicarious resilience. It

addresses the question of how psychotherapists who work with survivors of political
violence or kidnapping are affected by their clients’ stories of resilience. It focuses on the
psychotherapists’ interpretations of their clients’ stories, and how they make sense of
the impact that these stories have had on their lives. In semistructured interviews, 12
psychotherapists who work with victims of political violence and kidnapping were
interviewed about their perceptions of their clients’ overcoming of adversity. A phe-
nomenological analysis of the transcripts was used to describe the themes that speak
about the effects of witnessing how clients cope constructively with adversity. These
themes are discussed to advance the concept of vicarious resilience and how it can
contribute to sustaining and empowering trauma therapists.

Keywords: Vicarious Resilience; Resilience

Fam Proc 46:229–241, 2007

T his article proposes a new concept called vicarious resilience (VR), based on a
qualitative study of the experience of psychotherapists who work with victims and
families of victims of political violence. The formulation of this idea draws on a syn-
thesis of several different areas of clinical theory, research, and practice. The first
relates to the vicarious impact of trauma survivors’ stories and experiences on the
professionals who work with them. This phenomenon has been analyzed primarily
through the concepts of vicarious traumatization (VT), secondary traumatic stress,
empathic stress, and compassion fatigue (Figley, 1998). The second relates to resil-
ience, exploring the way in which trauma survivors access adaptive processes and
coping mechanisms to survive and even thrive in the face of adversity (Masten &
Coatsworth, 1998; Walsh, 2003). The third relates to a category of traumatic stress
that, although specific and outside the awareness of many practicing mental health
professionals, is actually common throughout the world: politically motivated

wCounseling and School Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA.
zSurvivors of Torture International, San Diego, CA.
‰Social Work Department, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA.

229
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violence, including kidnapping, disappearance, assassination, torture, and other

forms of persecution (Danieli, Rodley, & Weisaeth, 1996). Survivors of these forms of
violence are represented in significant numbers in countries that are experiencing war
and ethnic, religious, or political conflict. They are also common within refugee and
asylum-seeker populations in countries of refuge. These forms of violence affect
families and communities, as well as those who are directly physically injured.
Through our association with programs and professionals involved in the treatment
of survivors of torture and political violence, we have had the opportunity to observe
the complexity of the psychotherapeutic process in this context. A torture treatment
center, Survivors of Torture, International, with which we are affiliated, developed a
program focusing on the recognition and management of VT in professional staff who
come into contact with torture stories in the course of their work (D. Gangsei,
C. Green, & C. Anderson, personal communication, 2001, Survivors of Torture,
International). We noticed that among the psychotherapists working with torture
survivors, some made specific reference to the inspiration and strength they drew
from working with clients whom they sometimes described as ‘‘heroes.’’ We developed
an interest in integrating vicarious learning and resilience in theory and practice by
proposing the concept of VR.
The concept was first tested by interviewing mental health providers who spoke of
their positive experiences while working with survivors of torture (Engstrom, 2004).
This led us to speculate that work with trauma survivors has the potential to affect
and transform therapists in a unique and positive manner. This change may be a
common and natural phenomenon, as is VT, although the mechanisms by which VT
and VR develop are likely to be different. Introducing this concept into the profes-
sional vocabulary may help therapists develop a useful resource to strengthen the
work they do by focusing on a process that is different from VT but generated in
similar relational dynamics.
This exploratory study tested whether therapists working with traumatized pop-
ulations learn something about overcoming adversity from their clientsFa process
that we propose to call VR. Because of the novelty of the idea and the need to learn
about the possibility of developing this concept, we chose a qualitative inquiry as the
best method for our investigation. We formulate a preliminary description of the
component elements of VR, through the phenomenological analysis based on our
research, to guide future research and application to clinical situations.

The Stressful Consequences of Working WithTrauma Survivors

VT, secondary traumatic stress, empathic stress, and compassion fatigue are all
terms that have been coined to describe and explain the negative effects of working
with traumatized individuals, families, and systems. Although these terms are
sometimes used interchangeably (Sexton, 1999), we offer a definition for each of them
to help clarify the concept that we are introducing in this article.
McCann and Pearlman (1990) used the term VT to refer to ‘‘a transformation in the
therapist’s (or other trauma worker’s) inner experience resulting in empathetic
engagement with the client’s trauma material’’ (Pearlman & Saakvitne, 1995, p. 31).
This concept describes how the cumulative effect of working with traumatized clients
may interfere with the therapist’s feelings, cognitive schemas, memories, self-esteem,

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and/or sense of safety. It is a unique and inevitable consequence of trauma work. It
does not reflect psychopathology in the therapist or the survivor client (Pearlman &
MacIan, 1995).
Secondary traumatic stress refers to ‘‘the experience of tension and distress
directly related to the demands of living with and caring for someone who displays the
symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder’’ (Figley, 1998, p. 7). It is based on the
diagnostic conceptualization of acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disor-
der (PTSD). Figley developed the concept of compassion fatigue and described it as
‘‘the convergence of traumatic stress, secondary traumatic stress and cumulative
stress/burnout in the lives of helping professionals and other care providers’’ (Figley,
2002, p. 124). In trauma work, the empathic listener is confronted with powerlessness
and disruption. The length and intensity of traumatic stories naturally affect thera-
pists in negative ways parallel to the impact of trauma on the client. Figley (1998)
spoke of VT as a related term describing the transmission of traumatic stress by
bearing witness to stories about trauma. Weingarten (2003) used the term empathic
stress disorder to refer to severe stress reactions persisting over time, including
burnout, VT, and secondary traumatic stress. Again, these terms depict the costs of
helping when one is caring and sensitive to the needs of others. In sum, VT empha-
sizes the notion of cumulative stress, developing slowly over time from bearing wit-
ness, as a natural and inner experience of therapists; secondary traumatic stress and
compassion fatigue emphasize the occurrence of symptoms parallel to PSTD.
Weingarten’s proposed model (2003, 2004) illuminates additional complex factors
that may influence the manner and degree to which therapists are affected by their
exposure to violent scenarios. In her book, Common Shock (2003), Weingarten
described four witnessing positions that vary depending on how aware and empowered
the witness (e.g., therapist, health professional) is in relation to violent events. In
Position One, the witness has both awareness of the implications of violent acts on
others and the capacity for effective action. In Position Two, the witness holds a
position of power or influence but is unaware of the meaning and implications of the
violence for the victims. In Position Three, the witness has neither awareness nor
power to take action. Finally, in Position Four, the witness has awareness or knowl-
edge regarding the meaning of the events being witnessed but is helpless or unable to
take action, or lacks avenues for doing so. Although therapists may find themselves in
any of these positions at different times and in various contexts, Weingarten specu-
lated that therapists who often find themselves in Position Four are most vulnerable
to VT.

Resilience
According to Masten and Coatsworth (1998), resilience is an inference about
someone’s life based on a past or current adversity, and a pattern of positive adap-
tation to challenges. It is a description of a pattern, not a personality trait. Resilience
stems from usual and normal human adaptive abilities. Studies focusing on the impact
of social networks (Garmezy, 1991) found that extrafamilial relationships that sup-
port individuals unconditionally are consistent elements in survivors’ stories. Luthar
and Cicchetti (2000) asserted that personal characteristics are continually shaped by
interactions between the person and the environment, and that protective and risk
factors at various levels (familial, communal, and social) also interact constantly.

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Context plays a fundamental role in providing opportunities and rewards for

adaptive behavior. Bernard’s (2004) research from her work with children, families,
and schools confirmed that certain traits make a difference in how children cope with
adversity. Some of these traits are a tendency to seek healing from pain, ability to
draw lessons from experience, openness and spontaneity, humor, creativity, initiative,
and compassion. In her work on protective familial, school, and community factors
that prevent behavioral and emotional problems in children, Bernard explained how
these systems have the capacity to enhance each other, strengthening and expanding
ways to help children cope with adversity. Walsh (2003) has developed a family
resilience framework to identify and target key family processes that may foster
healing and reduce stress and vulnerability. These processes involve three domains of
family functioning: family belief systems, organization patterns, and communication
processes. Walsh places the foundations of resilience within an ecological, develop-
mental, and relational perspective.
Finally, the emerging body of literature from positive psychology focuses on
learning how to build strengths to thrive in life. Seligman and Peterson (2003)
asserted that effective psychotherapies identify and nurture clients’ strengths, pro-
mote personal control, and foster authentic relationships. This view is consistent with
the idea that psychotherapy is about promoting resilience.
An extensive literature supports the formulation that both VT and resiliency are
natural human processes activated by exposure to stress. In this context, it is
reasonable to propose that the psychotherapeutic environment also creates opportu-
nities for a vicarious resiliency process. This is the proposal explored in this study.

Social and Political Violence: A Scenario

For this study, we selected a group of clinicians who work with a wide variety of
families and individuals who have suffered traumatic events that are, without ques-
tion, extraordinarily painful (i.e., kidnapping, torture, and/or assaults in the context
of armed conflict). Bogotá, Colombia, offered a rich opportunity to explore the idea set
forth in this article. Mass killings and retaliations have caused more than 4,000
politically motivated deaths per year in the last decade (International Crisis Group
[ICG], 2002). In addition, the long-lasting armed conflict degraded with the involve-
ment of independent armed groups involved in drug production, taxation, and traf-
ficking. Since 1998, reports of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights in Colombia have documented the situation, and reports of UN Special
Rapporteurs, working groups, and other UN agencies and bodies have ratified that
Colombia is today in a ‘‘humanitarian emergency.’’ Civilians commonly find them-
selves caught between the struggles of paramilitary groups and guerrillas. Both have
continually violated human rights and international humanitarian law by kidnapping
civilians for ransom or political motives and have committed an abundance of serious
crimes against the population (massacres, expropriation of lands, forced recruitment
of minors into the war, and kidnapping, among others). Kidnapping has been a
particularly serious issue because it has increased over the years at an alarming rate,
achieving a peak of 3,706 cases in 2000. In the period 2002–2005, however, the number
of victims has decreased steadily to about half the year 2000 number (Fondelibertad,
2005).

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METHOD

This qualitative, exploratory study was guided by grounded theory (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985) and phenomenology (Creswell, 1998; Moustakas, 1994). Through in-
ductive analysis, this study sought an in-depth understanding of the participants’
comprehension of, and their views on, how clients’ resilience had affected them. The
following guidelines for trustworthiness in qualitative research were followed: inter-
view guideline translation and consultation, data analysis triangulation, transfer-
ability, dependability, and data analysis saturation (Lincoln & Guba; Marshall &
Rossman, 1999). Our research team included a female bilingual (Spanish/English)
counseling psychologist and family therapist from Colombia (PH), a male bilingual
(Spanish/English) clinical psychologist of European descent (DG), and a male social
worker of European descent (DE). All of us have expertise in the areas of traumatic
stress, compassion fatigue, resilience, and multicultural and cross-cultural psycholo-
gy. In addition, two bilingual marriage and family therapy master’s-level students
from Mexico assisted us with transcription and data analysis.
We constructed a semistructured interview in English and Spanish. The formulation
of interview themes drew from a study of mental health providers contracted with
Survivors of Torture, International (Engstrom, 2004) and the researchers’ clinical
experience. Topics addressed in the interview were demographic and training back-
ground; clinical cases leaving a strong impression with the therapist in relation to coping
with adversity; thoughts about how interviewees may have been positively affected by
clients’ ways of coping with adversity; the most challenging professional and personal
aspects overcome in working with survivors of political persecution or kidnapping; ob-
servations of clients’ ways of overcoming adversity; effects on and/or changes in the
therapists as a result of listening to clients’ ways of overcoming adversity; and thoughts
on the concept of VR. A Colombian psychologist fluent in written and oral English re-
viewed both the English and Spanish versions of the interviews for accuracy.
The participant sample was purposefully selected according to intensity, chain, and
politically important sampling (Patton, 1990). Participants were recruited through
referrals from psychologists working in both governmental and nongovernmental
organizations. To ensure a broad scope of experiences with political and social trauma,
participants from a variety of political positions were invited to participate in the
study (Shamai, 2005). Potential referral sources were contacted by telephone or
electronic mail. The purpose of the study, as well as its potential benefits and risks,
was discussed. A letter of invitation and a consent form were sent to all potential
participants.
The participants were 1 psychiatrist from Colombia and 11 psychologists (8 trained
in Colombia and 3 trained in Colombia and overseas; of these, 10 had completed
graduate work beyond the bachelor of science in psychology degree). There were 9
females and 3 males in the participant group, all of whom worked with victims of
kidnapping, displacement, and political violence. Their years of experience as psy-
chotherapists ranged between 3 and 27 and between 1 and 18 working with this
population. Their training in traumatic stress involved attendance and participation
in continuing education seminars, individual and group study on the topic, develop-
ment of research projects, and training in the workplace. Six participants had formal
training in resilience, and 6 had become aware of this phenomenon during the course
of their clinical work.

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PH conducted the interviews in Bogotá, Colombia. All interviews were audiotaped

with the participants’ permission, coded to protect anonymity, transcribed by a
bilingual research assistant, and reviewed by one of the principal investigators for
translation and transcription accuracy. During theme analysis and reduction, two
of the principal investigators and research assistants constantly compared and
contrasted the interview transcripts to identify recurrent phrases and themes in the
data. A consultant reviewed the data analysis to add dependability to the study, and one
of the principal investigators reviewed the final data analysis (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).

RESULTS
Clients’ Effect onTherapists
All subjects described ways in which witnessing their clients overcome adversity
affected or changed the therapists’ own attitudes and emotions. Witnessing and
reflecting on human beings’ immense capacity to heal and reassessing the dimensions
of one’s own problems were the most common themes in this regard. For example, one
of the participants stated, ‘‘After working with people who have suffered these kinds
of problems, your definition of a problem changes. One takes issues with more ease.
One defines what is serious differently.’’ Understanding the role of spirituality and
religion and seeing clients as sources of learning were also typical responses. One such
example shows how the therapist’s vicarious learning translated into a more effective
overall approach to her professional work:

I always kept a distance from anything related to religious proselytism in my clinical practice
but now I am curious about the role of other dimensions and how to use them in a neutral
manner. If the person has spiritual resources, it is important to suggest that the client use it
without advocating. It opened another dimension to me, sometimes we only focus on using
psychological and social tools, and this limits our work.

By observing the value of spirituality in survivors’ lives, this therapist incorporated

another dimension into her work, anticipating that it will be valuable for her clients in
the future.
Another therapist reflected on human beings’ capacity to overcome adversity by
identifying how one of the clients who affected her the most developed acceptance of
the traumatic event, projected himself into the future, worked on a familial rela-
tionship, and took control of matters that could be controlled. This therapist spoke
about her work with a soldier who endured an extremely harsh captivity and moved on
with his life by making radical changes in his family relationships and professional
choices. After surviving a long-term kidnapping by a guerrilla group, he started
therapy. In her work with this client, the therapist witnessed outstanding transfor-
mations well beyond overcoming PTSD symptoms. This story reflected changes in the
survivor’s self-concept and heightened self-efficacy:

A 22-year-old young soldier [was] kidnapped by the guerrillas He told me how during this
time he suffered, was desperate, and thought recurrently about dying. At some point he
started to think about God and realized that this situation was an opportunity. While
reflecting on the word of God, he drew a figure that he interpreted as his father’s image. He
had not seen his father in years and he thought that he had to leave captivity to find him. His
father was a peasant and was very old. He did not want to die without finding him and

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knowing if he was still alive. He spent a total of 27 months in captivity. Halfway into this
captivity he found hope by focusing on his spiritual beliefs. He tried to find ways to exercise,
eat, get sun, and think about how to plan for his life after captivity. After his release, he
started treatment with me and went back to college. He finished a degree and changed his
life. He looked for his father and found him alone and ill in his town. He lost his old buddies
as a result of these changes, as he would not drink and go out as much. He transformed
himself after this experience.

This client affected the therapist to the extent that, for the first time, she believed it
was possible to recover from this kind of traumatic experience and that there was
more to her work than dealing with anger, frustration, and pain. It reaffirmed her
commitment to work in Colombia and for Colombians, and to continued work for the
nongovernmental organization of which she was a part. She stated,

This young man helped me a lot because I had been working for a long time with soldiers’
families and kidnapped policemen and I received overwhelming frustration, pain, and anger.
When I worked with them I represented the stateFworking for the only NGO dedicated to
serving the kidnapped and with connection to the government. They came in very angry
toward the government because of how it managed their cases, so in order to start therapy
I had to let them vent and help them separate my work from their experiences with the
government. However, I became someone who they could scream at in their pain and anger.
My work with him helped me see that I could do more to help. It helped me see what I did,
what worked, and how I could use this case as an example of hope and possibility for other
clients.

Furthermore, the potential for multidimensional benefits of VR is demonstrated in

this case; witnessing the client’s recovery, the therapist reported, ‘‘gave me hope back.
Again I gained hope that the young men who were in captivity could be OK and would
survive. There were possibilities that they would come back alive and not as affected
as I thought. This was a very important lesson for me as a therapist.’’
This therapist was working with military personnel and their families at a time
when kidnappings escalated. She was also pregnant. She explained how she coped with
the stress of her work as follows:

I did not want my baby to get all these negative emotions. I gave a different meaning to my
work. I used to talk to my baby, telling her that this was an opportunity to serve our country
and to do something at this particular time, that this is what we had to do, that this was our
job. I saw it as an opportunity that life brought to me.

Another case demonstrates how resilience processes at work in a community-level

psychodrama intervention were therapeutic not only to the participants but also to the
therapist, in unanticipated ways. This therapist worked with an entire community
that had been affected by assassinations and displacement. A group of people were
selected to bear the community’s memory. She worked with this small group first to
develop stories about what had happened before, during, and after the displacement,
how they felt, and what they hoped for the future. These stories embodied a collective
history that resonated deeply with all community members. In addition to storytell-
ing, music and small drama pieces were incorporated to present at a community
gathering. The event was witnessed by the community affected and other

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communities. It sought to restore the collective memory about what had happened and
give new meaning about where to go next. This work left a deep mark on the therapist.
She reported experiencing empowerment and clarity with regard to formulating her
own position with respect to social and political violence. She said, ‘‘[I thought about]
how to coherently sustain my opinion in the face of someone who is telling me the
uselessness of my advocacy of love, to be able to sustain myself and say that noting all
positions, I don’t accept the use of weapons.’’
A smaller number of subjects referred to their clients’ engagement with the search
for social and legal validation of the truth as a witnessed-resilience dynamic. In the
Colombian context, most human rights violations are committed with impunity and
are seldom punished; reparations are rarely awarded and even less often actually
made. Nevertheless, these therapists described experiencing clarification and
empowerment of their own values and political perspectives holding that social and
legal validation and reparation are key processes in recovery.
Persistence and reassessment of the dimensions of one’s own problems were gen-
eral themes identified as personal changes by therapists. Responses included realizing
that clients may have more strengths than assessed at the beginning of treatment,
maintaining hope over time, developing tolerance to frustration, and compartmen-
talizing. One of the therapists spoke about his own learning process on self-efficacy,
illustrating how he learned through direct exposure and modeling:

I have to acknowledge that when working with people who live in unsafe conditions, I was
afraid about what that would mean for me, my colleagues, and my family. My wife usually
asked what could happen to me, what [it] would mean to our lives, and what could happen to
our children. Now that I lead other professionals doing this work, I can say that I handle
better the uncertainties brought by my work. Doing field work all over the country with all
sorts of people[,] including the military, the paramilitary and the guerrillas[,] has helped.
What helped was that I always found a person or a group of people who showed balance in
approaching their interactions in difficult situations. This helped me overcome my fears.
I could trust them and I could learn how to handle these difficult situations.

Another therapist spoke about the effect that one of her clients had had on her
personally and professionally. She spoke about how tragedy became a part of this
family’s life and how she worked with the mother without really knowing that her
work was so valuable to this client. The therapist learned what aspects of her work
were useful and regained hope in her work with victims of kidnapping. In her words,

I had a case of a client whose husband was kidnapped. He spent four and one-half years in
captivity. She was a person with many resources, able to analyze and see facts clearly. She
believed that her children could learn from her strengths and survive this situation. She
never foresaw that her husband’s captivity was going to last that long. However, she focused
on her children. It was discovered that she had cancer. She never recovered from it and died
three years later while her husband was still captive. I accompanied her until she died. She
taught her children about finding and using their strengths and about coping with loss.
I learned about how human beings have so many resources to face tragedy, the importance of
spirituality, tolerance and the ability to survive. She left that message clearly to her sons and
they survived well for eight more months until the father was released. She called me to the
hospital the day she died and thanked me for teaching her how to die by talking with her

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about life. While everybody else spoke to her about death and dying, she said that I taught her
and her children about life.

After working with this client, the therapist was motivated to articulate further her
own therapy model and plan to do scholarly work on a psychotherapy model for
working with such clients.

VicariousTrauma
This research naturally suggests the question of whether and how VR relates to VT.
Although the interview protocol did not specifically query for it, VT was mentioned by
all participants, confirming the established principle that work with trauma survivors
can negatively affect the therapist. This issue is an integral part of the work with
trauma survivors in contexts of political violence. Among the experiences subjects
generally reported were anger, hopelessness, fear, feeling overwhelmed, and the
frustrating awareness of the limitations of the therapy enterprise in addressing the
massive traumas that their clients were confronting.

Vicarious Resilience
The themes emerging from this qualitative study indicate to us that therapists who
work in extremely traumatic social contexts learn about coping with adversity from
their clients, that their work does have a positive effect on the therapists, and that this
effect can be strengthened by bringing conscious attention to it. Based on this data, we
advance the idea that a specific resilience process occurs as a result of psychothera-
pists’ work with trauma survivors: VR. This process is characterized by a unique and
positive effect that transforms therapists in response to client trauma survivors’ own
resiliency. In other words, it refers to the transformations in the therapists’ inner
experience resulting from empathetic engagement with the client’s trauma material.
VR may be a unique consequence of trauma work. We argue that this process is a
common and natural phenomenon illuminating further the complex potential of
therapeutic work both to fatigue and to heal.
Confirmation of this notion comes in the subjects’ own words. At the end of the
interviews, they were asked directly to offer an opinion on the utility of the concept of
VR. One responded,

I believe that this process happens. For example, when you witness how resilient children
are, you question why adults may not have the same resources. When one works in this field
you live differently: You define the meaning of a problem differently, as difficulties to
overcome, and that is a part of the work you do. I assure you that if I were working in another
field, I would behave like before like seeing big problems because I couldn’t pay something on
time. This work generates a positive change as you generally may become more resourceful,
less fearful, more dynamic, more resolute, more active and eager to question yourself per-
manently. When you witness someone coping with something like a kidnapping, you question
why you don’t cope better with your own losses. In other words, you develop your potential.

Another participant described her understanding as follows:

I imagine that VR is about what I learned from the client and what I also bring into the
situation, what I learned through others. With my resources and their resources, they teach

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me, because if I learn to suffer with them, I also have to learn to overcome the pain with
them; it is a systemic process where we all learn through a relationship. I believe that this is a
natural process inherent to the therapeutic relationship that we establish. If there is [a]
relationship of mutual growth and respectful commitment, if they are resilient, I must be so
too. The therapeutic relationship allows us to transform each other and grow.

VR is not the sum of all the positive experiences that therapists remember, nor is it
a generic term for everything that motivates the therapist. The data from this study
reveal a complex array of elements contributing to the empowerment of therapists
through interaction with clients’ stories of resilience. These elements are witnessing
and reflecting on human beings’ immense capacity to heal; reassessing the signifi-
cance of the therapists’ own problems; incorporating spirituality as a valuable
dimension in treatment; developing hope and commitment; articulating personal and
professional positions regarding political violence; articulating frameworks for heal-
ing; developing tolerance to frustration; developing time, setting, and intervention
boundaries that fit therapeutic interventions in context; using community interven-
tions; and developing the use of self in therapy. Awareness of the phenomenon and
component elements of VR and introducing the concept into the professional vocab-
ulary can guide therapists in strengthening themselves and their work.
For example, participants identified specific ways in which the experience of
observing clients’ resiliency affected the subjects’ own attitudes, emotions, and be-
havior. These effects generalized beyond the therapy situation to significantly shape
the subjects’ perceptions of themselves, their relationships, and their environment.
Participants reflected on the ways in which the therapeutic process interacted with
and strengthened clients’ resiliency. The benefits of empowerment accruing to the
therapists in this study included increased understanding of the therapeutic process,
increased understanding of the resiliency process, and an increased sense of efficacy in
their work. Participants also understood the phenomenon of VR in relationship to the
professional, social, and political contexts from which it emerged. These therapists
learned by observing clients acting effectively in relation to larger forces and struc-
tures, and they observed their own competence and reflexive sense of efficacy as they
themselves negotiated these structures. Finally, our work supports Weingarten’s
(2003) theoretical work on witnessing violence: The therapists’ narratives reflect that,
at their best, they were able to perform their work from a position of compassion,
awareness, knowledge, and effective action (Position One witnessing).
Particularly important to useful application of the concept of VR is its relationship
to VT. Based on the qualitative data obtained in this study, the authors conclude that
VT and VR processes occur naturally and may co-occur in the work of therapists with
survivors of political violence. In trauma work, the empathic listener is confronted
with stories of powerlessness and disruption as well as resourcefulness and adapta-
tion. Both types affect therapists; the degree to which they do so is influenced by
factors including, perhaps, the length and intensity of the stories.

Clinical Implications
We believe that attention to vicarious resilience will enrich the process through
which therapists and other healers working with trauma deal with the emotional
aspects of their work. Understanding VR as a process equally as significant as VT
underscores the complexity of trauma work and adds a valuable resource for

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empowerment and survival. Both processes can be managed: VT can be identified and
decreased, and VR can be identified and increased by developing awareness, pur-
posefully cultivating and expanding it. Overall, the importance of developing the
concept of VR within the field of traumatic stress in contexts of political violence stems
from pragmatic necessities. First, it is a useful tool to counteract deeply fatiguing
processes in which therapists may come to see themselves as ‘‘victims’’ of those who
have been victimized. Learning to attend to both VT and VR supports the health and
strength of those who choose to work in contexts in which brutal pain is always
present. Second, awareness of VR processes may strengthen the experiences that
already reinforce the motivation and persistence of therapists who work with survivors
of political violence. Creating a conscious exploration of the phenomenon and a con-
text in which to explore it may help therapists amplify and find new meaning in their
work. Third, having this concept available for presentation in training and supervi-
sion settings can become part of guiding trauma workers to take care of themselves.
Fourth, because the data show that vicarious learning generalizes to the broader
context of therapists’ lives, trauma therapists may use what they learn from their
clients in their own times of crisis. Fifth, because clients often worry about the toxic
effect of their traumas on their therapists, introducing the concept of VR to clients
may facilitate the clinical work. Finally, awareness of VR can enrich and motivate
therapists’ conceptualizing of their clinical work and developing of their professional
careers. Working with multiple systems and witnessing transformations in clients’
storytelling were common interview themes. Some participants were inspired to
expand their trauma work into teaching, writing, and research.

Methodological Issues
The exploratory nature of this research invites reflections on the methodology and
consideration of directions for future research on the topic.
We were aware that the results of the study would be significantly shaped by the
choice of interview questions. The selection of questions was rooted in clinical expe-
rience, a study of mental health providers contracting with Survivors of Torture
International, and the professional literature. The authors attempted to account for
our own biases by including an external auditor and using triangulation techniques. It
is still possible that our expectations influenced the findings and that other dimen-
sions of the phenomenon remain undefined. It is therefore important that other re-
searchers replicate and extend this investigation.
A logically understandable but unplanned aspect of the analysis was the interaction
between VR and VT. Although the interview focused on various dimensions of resil-
ience and the effect of clients’ resilience on their lives, all participants spontaneously
interjected material about VT into their discussions. The content of their narratives
thus strongly illustrated the simultaneous presence of both processes. However,
questions about how these two processes coexist, when they are noticed, and how they
interact in shaping therapists’ experiences were left untouched and are worthy of
future study.
The findings should also be considered in light of the limitations presented by the
methodology. Although the sample size is consistent with the standard in the field
(Lincoln & Guba, 1985), generalizability is limited. For example, participants’ level of
relevant clinical experience and training varied greatly. It is possible that different

Fam. Proc., Vol. 46, June, 2007

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results might have emerged if participants had had a more circumscribed range of
training and experience.
Future research can further explore the components of the VR phenomenon, the
dynamic process through which it affects and empowers trauma therapists, and what
specific practices could help professionals benefit from VR processes. Other questions
suggested by the existing analysis and open for further research include: Are thera-
pists who have support more likely to experience VR? Are those who are more familiar
with resiliency more likely to draw VR experiences from their clients? Are clinicians
who have high rates of VT less likely to develop VR?

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, our research identifies vicarious resilience as a new concept in the
field of trauma work. Further, the study supports the notion that VR is a natural
process that has not previously been explicitly defined and described. Hence, its
potential utility has not been fully realized. VR offers a counterbalance to the negative
effects of trauma work on therapists. Indeed, this study suggests that therapists may
find their ability to reframe negative events and coping skills enhanced through work
with trauma survivors if they are open to, and aware of, the possibility and utility of
vicarious resilience.

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