Posttraumatic Stress or Posttraumatic growth: Trainee therapists’ responses to unexpected disclosures of childhood sexual abuse Gary Herrington and Jon March BACP Research Conference 15th & 16th May 2015

Literature Review Complex and wide area for research Little or nothing relating to Trainees without a personal history of CSA Real risk of posttraumatic / vicarious traumatisation of trainees Opportunity for posttraumatic growth of both client and trainee

Microsoft Engineering Excellence Role of the Trauma Therapist “…to protect, to bear witness, and in so doing, to make it possible for unspeakable things to be told and unbearable feelings to be borne.” (Herman & Schatzow, 1987, p. 12) Microsoft Confidential

Methodology Design Sampling Analysis Qualitative Phenomenological Study Semi-structured Interview Technique Ethical approval by University of Leicester Ethics Board Sampling Seven volunteer participants interviewed (Two by Skype) All practising therapists of varied experience and theoretical orientation All experienced unexpected client disclosure of CSA whilst a trainee Recruited via BACP Research pages, email and personal contact Sourced from volunteer organisations across the Midlands and Scotland Analysis Grounded Theory (Corbin & Strauss, 1990 & 2008; Charmaz, 2006; McLeod, 2011) Theoretical sampling within body of data collected

Findings: 4 Domains & 10 Themes Experiencing Trauma (617MU) Experiencing traumatic disclosure (P7/234MU) Doubting professional self (P7/225MU) Containing therapist (P7/158MU) Witnessing Trauma (519MU) Witnessing client trauma (P7/519MU) Impact on Therapy (688MU) Getting alongside the client (P7/369MU) Managing therapeutic process (P7/193MU) Maintaining professional boundaries (P5/126MU) Impact on Therapist (597MU) Experiencing personal/professional growth (P7/341MU) Experiencing traumatic disruption (P7/154MU) Retaining traumatic experience (P6/102MU)

Domain: Experiencing Trauma (617MU) Doubting professional self (P7/225MU) Feeling inept or unskilled (P7/117MU) “I was sitting, in the room… when I had, this thought, which was accompanied by a feeling, what the hell am I doing here, whatever made me think, that I could do this.”

Domain: Witnessing Trauma (519MU) Witnessing Client Trauma (P7/519MU) Witnessing scale / detail of client trauma (P7/201MU) “I think the scale of it was horrendous. …because a lot of abuse happens in the family home… and I've worked a lot, with child protection issues, in the past, with young children. So that was a bit out of my experience, I guess… I didn’t think of it at the time, but, in hindsight, I just thought it was so horrendous. […] It was really shocking...”

Domain: Witnessing Trauma (519MU) Witnessing Client Trauma (P7/519MU) Witnessing traumatic disruption (P7/197MU) “…she’d lived all her life being gay, which is fine if you are gay, but she wasn’t gay, and I felt quite a sadness for her, that she’d lived her life not having children and really wasn’t gay, […] I was feeling quite a sadness about… what she hadn’t achieved, and that stayed with me for a long time.”

Domain: Impact on therapy (688MU) Getting alongside client (P7/369MU) Keeping the secret secret (P4/29MU) “And she found it a really powerful thing that she could say something like that in one room to one person and that was it, it would stay there… I think it’s part of a very secret secret.”

Domain: Impact on therapy (688MU) Managing Professional Boundaries (P7/158MU) Managing boundary dilemmas (P5/68MU) “I just felt… [sigh] that I couldn’t, I needed to touch her to get her to be able to talk. But I’m, I’m female and it was the male that she couldn't bear to be near.…”

Domain: Impact on therapist (826MU) Experiencing Traumatic Disruption (P7/154MU) Changing personal behaviour (P2/12MU) “…we haven’t got any, you know, but I mean, anybody in, in the male, in the family, I used to like, you, you know, just watch them all the time, just to make sure… it was just I thought I lost a bit of trust in them, it was a bit sad.”

Domain: Impact on therapist (826MU) Experiencing Personal / Professional Growth (P7/341MU) Witnessing client growth (P6/104MU) “She had made changes in her life that she was happy about, definitely. She had completed the course and got a distinction and… She’d met somebody new…”

Microsoft Engineering Excellence Recommendations Recommendations for trainees: Embrace feelings of being inept/unskilled and learn about subject area Recommendations for therapy: Be flexible within the constraints of theoretical orientation and training Embrace supervision and personal therapy as a means to improving self-understanding (countertransference etc.) and therapeutic outcomes Recommendations for training: Specific training in counselling trauma clients should be ubiquitous throughout training courses Immediate supervision may benefit trainees experiencing unexpected disclosures of CSA Microsoft Confidential

Microsoft Engineering Excellence Limitations Temporal and academic requirements of Masters level Study Small scale study - Low participant numbers Purposive sample - limiting generalisability, exaggerating the positive Researcher Reflexivity Microsoft Confidential

Microsoft Engineering Excellence Further Research To understand scale of under-reporting / potential for unexpected disclosures To understand scale of trainee therapists affected by negative impact Further examine the detailed causes of vicarious traumatisation Microsoft Confidential

Microsoft Engineering Excellence Any Questions? “It seemed to be a life-changing positive thing to have disclosed it, and we survived it together. I think I survived it as a trainee therapist and she survived it by saying this is what happened to me.” Microsoft Confidential

Posttraumatic Stress or Posttraumatic growth: Trainee therapists’ responses to unexpected disclosures of childhood sexual abuse Gary Herrington and Jon March BACP Research Conference 15th & 16th May 2015