Caring with Compassion
Potential Traumatic Experiences in Child Abuse Medical Work
A traumatic experience is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience that may or may not impact physical safety. It’s the kind of experience that is hard to shake off and sticks with you. It is often associated with feelings of helplessness or hopelessness. These experiences can be primary or secondary.
Accessible Version
Diagram showing two boxes, each with a list of things that feed into the two kinds of trauma.
Primary trauma has feeding into it:
- Violent act toward oneself
- Witness to violent act
- Can be verbal or physical
- Neighborhood exposures to extreme suffering
- Challenging court testimony
Secondary trauma has feeding into it:
- Witness to another's traumatic suffering
- Review of pictures or videos
- Record review
- Debriefing venues such as peer review