Welcome to Healing Hearts, Healthy Minds!
My name is Faith Lockwood, I am an aspiring Clinical Psychologist, specializing in
Health Psychology. My graduate degree is a master’s of science in forensic psychology specializing in sex offender behavior. Through this blog, I aim to offer guidance first, to therapists that treat sexual abuse victims. I also aim to provide encouragement, support, and resources to ensure that the therapy they provide has a better chance of remaining continuous. There is an elevated prevalence of therapists experiencing compassion fatigue when treating clients that have been victimized by sexual abuse (Nelson, 2016). Compassion fatigue can lead to burnout. When burnout occurs, it can cause a discontinuation of services to the clients being treated for PTSD due to sexual abuse/violence. This can cause setbacks in therapy can cause the client’s mental health to decline further (Nilsson et al., 2021). The objective of therapy is to help the client heal, learn to cope with triggers, and prevent further harm, if we can help it.
References
Nelson, T. S. (2016). Therapist vicarious trauma and burnout when treating military sexual trauma. In Treating military sexual trauma. (pp. 257–274). Springer Publishing Company.
Nilsson, T., Falkenström, F., Perrin, S., Svensson, M., Johansson, H., & Sandell, R. (2021). Exploring termination setback in a psychodynamic therapy for panic disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 89(9), 762–772. https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000678