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Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force On Violence And The Family
Service providers and researchers who deal with family violence often feel torn as they try to maintain professional attitudes and responses at the same time that they feel outrage, disgust, fear, and sadness because of their constant exposure to personal stories of abuse. Family violence elicits very strong feelings. Even professionals trained to respond to trauma sometimes experience vicarious and secondary traumatization from repeated exposure to the effects of family violence through their clients. Dealing with their own intense emotions has not always been recognized as part of therapists' professional experience, and they have been trained to remain 'neutral.' Consequently, they become uncomfortable and concerned when they have the natural feelings that occur when working with violence victims. In such situations they may 'tune out' the effects of violence just as victims do, minimizing the seriousness of the event and signaling the limits of emotional tolerance. But the intense feelings that arise when dealing with violence issues actually provide clues that something is wrong indeed. If professionals have too little emotion and compassion, they are not able to help the victims. If they have too much emotion, they are overwhelmed by the magnitude and intensity of the problems.
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