Managing the Effects of Vicarious Trauma and Burnout with Jenny Hughes

In this episode, I share the mic with Jenny Hughes. Jenny is a licensed clinical psychologist with a wealth of experience in the mental health field. As the founder of Brave Providers, she offers a safe space for trauma therapists to come together and address the challenges of vicarious trauma and burnout. Jenny's passion for helping others and her personal experiences navigating the hardships of her own life make her an empathetic and knowledgeable advocate for mental health professionals. By providing a platform for connection and support, Jenny envisions a community that can help therapists combat the emotional challenges they face and foster resilience within the profession.

During our conversation, Jenny shares:

1. The struggle mental health providers face with vicarious trauma and burnout.

2. The significance of community support in strengthening trauma therapists' resilience.

3. Methods of overcoming compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress.

4. How & why she decided to start Brave Providers to create connection and support among therapists.

5. The importance of mental health practitioners knowing their limits & advocating for themselves.

A few of Jenny's quotable moments:

"I noticed that especially during the pandemic, there were not a lot of resources for therapists to be able to get that support in a community that's protected and for them."

"I think the most important first step is to be able to name what is going on and to name the vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, whatever it might be."

"If we don't have clarity, if we can't name vicarious trauma, then we're not gonna know what to do. And that what to do is a lot of different things, which can include certainly reaching out for community like in Brave, but it's really about going back to basics. that old wisdom that we all know, that we "should do" , but we aren't always able to do that because we're just trying our best to get through each day."

"What I want is for people to be even more aware of vicarious resilience so that they can really benefit from those tiny little pieces along the way. Because we get those, those happen much more frequently than we realize. And so, again, just like naming vicarious trauma helps us to see the pathway to what we need to heal. Naming vicarious resilience means that we're more open to noticing those warm fuzzies that we get when these amazing things happen in therapy."

To learn more about Brave Providers visit:

https://www.braveproviders.com/

Join the Brave Providers community on social media:

TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/@braveproviders

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/braveproviders/

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebravevicarioustraumacommunity

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