Sekundär traumatisk stress - En yrkesrisk
(2018) SOPA63 20172School of Social Work
- Abstract
- The aim of this study is to examine how social workers in child welfare identify and reflect on stress in order to research to what extent social workers understand and use empathy in their professional role. The aim was also to examine the extent to which these social workers have developed an understanding of secondary traumatic stress, a particular type of stress where empathy is identified as a central tool. The analysis was based on the theory of empathy and its four components; the physiological component affective response and the three cognitive components self-other awareness, perspective taking and emotion regulation. The study is based on qualitative interviews with six women working with child welfare. The results show that... (More)
- The aim of this study is to examine how social workers in child welfare identify and reflect on stress in order to research to what extent social workers understand and use empathy in their professional role. The aim was also to examine the extent to which these social workers have developed an understanding of secondary traumatic stress, a particular type of stress where empathy is identified as a central tool. The analysis was based on the theory of empathy and its four components; the physiological component affective response and the three cognitive components self-other awareness, perspective taking and emotion regulation. The study is based on qualitative interviews with six women working with child welfare. The results show that although all of the respondents reflect on stress, they cannot identify different types of stress or distinguish different types of stress from each other. The respondents experience moral distress, work overload and signs of burnout. All respondents exhibit one or more symptoms or individual indicators suggesting secondary traumatic stress but they all lack knowledge about secondary traumatic stress, its symptoms and risk factors for developing it. The respondents state that empathy is crucial in their line of work but acknowledge the fact that it can make them vulnerable. They all say that they use self-other awareness, one of the components of empathy, as a conscious strategy to prevent stress and being affected by their clients’ traumatic stories. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8932761
- author
- Sjöberg, Denise LU and Saltarski, Janni LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SOPA63 20172
- year
- 2018
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- secondary traumatic stress, empathy, social work, child welfare
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 8932761
- date added to LUP
- 2018-01-31 13:44:38
- date last changed
- 2018-01-31 13:44:38
@misc{8932761, abstract = {{The aim of this study is to examine how social workers in child welfare identify and reflect on stress in order to research to what extent social workers understand and use empathy in their professional role. The aim was also to examine the extent to which these social workers have developed an understanding of secondary traumatic stress, a particular type of stress where empathy is identified as a central tool. The analysis was based on the theory of empathy and its four components; the physiological component affective response and the three cognitive components self-other awareness, perspective taking and emotion regulation. The study is based on qualitative interviews with six women working with child welfare. The results show that although all of the respondents reflect on stress, they cannot identify different types of stress or distinguish different types of stress from each other. The respondents experience moral distress, work overload and signs of burnout. All respondents exhibit one or more symptoms or individual indicators suggesting secondary traumatic stress but they all lack knowledge about secondary traumatic stress, its symptoms and risk factors for developing it. The respondents state that empathy is crucial in their line of work but acknowledge the fact that it can make them vulnerable. They all say that they use self-other awareness, one of the components of empathy, as a conscious strategy to prevent stress and being affected by their clients’ traumatic stories.}}, author = {{Sjöberg, Denise and Saltarski, Janni}}, language = {{swe}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Sekundär traumatisk stress - En yrkesrisk}}, year = {{2018}}, }