Trauma Stewardship with Elizabeth Shain, NICU-MT, MT-BC | #22

Bonus

May 31

In this episode we sit down with Elizabeth Shain, MT-BC, NICU-MT to speak about Trauma Stewardship. This is of paramount importance in today’s society. It is an in depth discussion on caring for ourselves as we care for others.

Trauma Stewardship is being fully present with others in their pain, trauma, and suffering without taking it on as our own. It is a long-term approach to tending to our own wholeness so we can be helpful to others in our full integrity.

term founded by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, the founder and director of The Trauma Stewardship Institute.

Primary Trauma: when you yourself survive something that fundamentally changes your worldview. (E.g., losing a parent to cancer, natural disasters, chronic illness

Vicarious Trauma: exposure to someone else’s trauma over time also known as: compassion fatigue, empathic strain, and secondary trauma.

16 warning signs of the Trauma Exposure Response:

Sense of doom/hopelessness

Feeling the weight of systemic oppression (“I can never do enough”)

Remaining in a state of hypervigilance/hyperarousal

Decreased creativity/increased need for structure

Inability to embrace complexity

Minimizing your own suffering

Chronic exhaustion/new onset of physical ailments

Inability to listen/deliberate avoidance

New onset of dissociative moments

Feeling a sense of persecution

Guilt

Fear

Anger and Cynicism

Inability to empathize/numbing/feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated

New onset of addiction/relapse of former addiction

Grandiosity/inflated sense of one’s work (work = identity)

Steps towards Trauma Stewardship

Step 1: Explore our own values and purpose, feelings and emotions, and past experiences and the meaning we continue to make of them.

Regularly check in with yourself.

Notice where you are holding pain and suffering in your body

Step 2: Seek support from others

Seek peer supervision from clinicians who are doing similar work.

If your work environment is unhealthy, you may need to do some serious reflection about whether or not you can continue in that environment long term.

Step 3: Create healthy boundaries and practice self-care.

Create a mental compartment for your work.

Create a routine that helps you put that work away each night.

Find practical ways to care for yourself throughout the day.

Sources:

Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, the founder and director of The Trauma Stewardship Institute

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel VanDerKolk,

In the Body of the World by Eve Ensler

Other podcast episodes that compliment this episode:

Episode #1: Trauma Informed Care - A Review and Call to Action

Episode #6: Clinical Strategies Through the Lens of Trauma-Informed Care

Episode #9: Attachment - What Is It and Why Is It Important?