PSY 6200 Resilience and Self-Care

Practitioners and educators who work with individuals at risk of having experienced trauma in their lives are especially vulnerable to experiencing secondary trauma and for developing compassion fatigue or other negative consequences of their work.  This course is designed to provide the background needed to help individuals better understand compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, secondary trauma, and the related outcomes.  An emphasis will be placed on prevention of, and healing from, compassion fatigue and secondary trauma.  The concept of resiliency, both at an individual and organizational level, the factors that promote it, and the current research related to building resiliency in individuals and communities will be discussed.  In addition, the course will focus on the professional's current self-care status which will include effective stress management methods for containment/control of unwanted distress and ways to build resiliency and healing.