Secondary Trauma for the Family Advocate aka Getting Through the Days
| Author | Mark Rubin |
| Pages | 26-30 |
26 FAMILY ADVOCATE www.shopaba.org
Secondary Trauma in the Legal Profession During COVID-19,
MSBA (Aug. 5, 2020), https://bit.ly/35sL1Xf; “Help! My
Tank Is Empty.” State Bar of N.M., https://bit.ly/3oyFeYW;
and Compassion Fatigue, N.C. Law. Assistance Program,
https://bit.ly/2FZHEOM. In the main, though, these papers
focus on lawyers and how their clients’ trauma aects them.
ey assume, in a sense, that lawyers oer a clean slate. We
are professionals, showing up for work with clear heads,
ready to take on our clients’ problems, however dicult they
might be.
In COVID-19 times, our clients still bring to us their
experiences. At the same time, we share with one another
and everyone around us a shared trauma: a world that does,
in a word, suck!
Can we tie COVID-19 to trauma? You bet! Without
feeling too constrained by the APA denition, we reach not
at all if we call the pandemic a natural disaster. I leave to
others issues about how our governmental response to
COVID-19 has impacted us. Tens of millions of people face
a new normal, as the lives they knew are gone, for the
foreseeable future. Lost jobs. Children, in need of the special
attention they get at school, sitting in front of a computer
screen for six hours. People we know and love with relatives
The National Child Traumatic Stress Network
describes secondary trauma as “the emotional
duress that results when an individual hears about
the rsthand trauma experiences of another.” And
trauma? e American Psychological Association
denes trauma as “an emotional response to a terrible event
like an accident, rape or natural disaster.”
at secondary trauma aects lawyers ought to be
unremarkable. Often, we see people in the worst states,
facing no good options. Often, too, they bring with them a
set of experiences that aect us deeply.
Layered on top of what we see when we meet a new client
are the limitations we face. Often, the cake is baked! We
cannot change the facts, and the law may leave us with a set
of unsatisfactory options. at fact—the level of helplessness
we face, as so-called problem solvers—traumatizes us, too.
Scholars have written about secondary trauma and
lawyers, exploring the topic from a psychological perspective.
See, e.g., Andrew P. Levin et al., Secondary Traumatic Stress in
Attorneys and eir Administrative Support Sta Working with
Trauma-Exposed Clients, 199 J. Nervous & Mental Disease
946 (2011). Further, see links to state bar sites with informa-
tion about dealing with secondary trauma, e.g., Lisa Caplan,
Secondary Trauma
for the Family
Advocate aka
Getting
Through
the Days
BY MARK RUBIN
Published in Family Advocate, Volume 43, Number 3, Winter 2021. © 2021 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof
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