Very often practitioners experience vicarious helplessness when dealing with children adolescents Dr Rose Falzon gave a workshop on this at the European Association for Counselling Conference in Malta 2014

1. D R R O S E F A L Z O N
E A C M A L T A C O N F E R E N C E
A P R I L 2 0 1 4
Practitioners' Experience of Vicarious
Helplessness when working with Children
and Adolescents

2. Helplessness in Practitioners
 Usually in the practitioner world we discuss burnout
and vicarious traumatization however from my
practitioner and supervision work, I very often
encountered practitioners experiencing vicarious
helplessness.
 Affects as witnesses and healers within our
practitioner work

3. Helplessness in Practitioners
 While exposure to traumatic narratives can affect all
practitioners across therapeutic modalities and
practices, practitioners working with children /
adolescents may encounter more the narratives and
witnessing of helplessness through the eyes of clients
still in a phase where dependency on significant
others is very present and autonomy in decisions and
ways of living is limited.

4. Burnout or
Compassion
Fatigue
 Burnout is a condition that begins
gradually and becomes progressively
worse.
 Overextending our capacity to help
and support others and reach the
demands of the caseloads
 How does one recognise burnout
and its cumulative effects
 Working through burnout

5. Vicarious
Traumatization
 A shift in the therapist’s world
view and core beliefs as a result of
primary or secondary exposure to
traumatic imagery and empathic
engagement with trauma
victims/survivors.
 The symptoms of vicarious
traumatization
 Working through Vicarious
Traumatization

6. Vulnerability
to Vicarious
Helplessness
Child welfare staff have to deal with
both direct and secondary exposure
to trauma which may lead to
vicariously feeling helpless.
When traumas impact children the
helplessness experienced may be
enhanced exponentially as children
and adolescents are more defenceless
and cannot act on their own accord.

7. Vulnerability to Vicarious Helplessness
 Horowitz (2006) notes that “vicarious exposures to
the events of clients’ lives are unavoidable for child
welfare workers and may be more toxic because they
more fully reflect workers’ lack of control and
inability to adequately impact clients’ lives”.
 These situations lead to vicarious helplessness:
feeling consistently helpless and powerless to be
effective in the unjust situations encountered and
unable to control outcomes when working with
vulnerable children and adolescents.

8. Small Group Exercise
 Does working with this client group make the
practitioner feel more helpless than when working
with adults and why?
 Have you ever felt vicarious helplessness and if yes
what helped you to support yourself in these
situations?
 DISCUSSION

9. Neurological level of mirroring
 Wegner et al (2004) supports the notion
that the phenomenon of mirroring takes
place on a neurological level.
 Results form neuroscientists research
 Hypothetical implication for practitioners
in witnessing to clients’
traumatic experiences

10. Neurological level of mirroring
 Helplessness can thus be one of these experiences felt on
a deep level: neurologically, emotionally, physically,
psychologically etc
 In certain situations accepting our helplessness or
powerlessness whilst remaining strong can be a real
challenge.
 Therefore, one of the first important starting points of
beneficial awareness needs to be the realization that
feelings of helplessness and hopelessness are part of the
burden one has to bear as a practitioner and that one is
not alone in experiencing them.

11. Recognising the Indicators that manifest
Vicarious Helplessness
The practitioner and supervisor need to be
sensitive and mindful to diverse indicators that
may manifest Vicarious Helplessness such as:
 Emotional Indicators
 Psychological Indicators
 Physical Indicators
 Personal life Indicators
 Workplace Indicators

12. What might alleviate the feeling of vicarious
helplessness
 Organizational aspects
 Personal aspects
 Resilience
 Self respect

13. Caring for yourself
while helping others
does not make you
dependant, selfish
incapable or needy. The
care and support that
helpers provide to their
clients can only be as
effective and beneficial
as the care they provide
themselves . You can
only give from what you
have.
“To keep the
lamp burning we
have to keep
putting oil in it.”
Mother Theresa