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Is News Overload Giving You ‘vicarious Trauma’?

Researchers say they’re worried that consuming a deluge of harrowing news could leave many people with “vicarious trauma.”

In a year of violence and suffering, here and around the world, harrowing reports and images have flooded news channels and social media feeds, affecting even those who haven’t personally witnessed the horrors.

That has two Boston University researchers bracing for a surge in “vicarious trauma”: distress from secondhand exposure to gruesome events through news, our screens, or from counseling traumatized people.

Steven Sandage directs research at BU’s Albert & Jessie Danielsen Institute and is a professor of psychology of religion and theology at the School of Theology. Laura Captari is a researcher and staff psychologist at the Danielsen Institute. They have studied vicarious trauma in religious leaders and therapists and developed CHRYSALIS, a free online program for caregivers to fortify their own resilience as they counsel traumatized congregants and patients. More than 400 people have gone through the program. The Danielsen Institute treats people with mental health problems and trains clinical psychologists and social workers.

Here, Captari and Sandage explain their research and what we can do to protect against these potentially traumatizing times:

The post Is news overload giving you ‘vicarious trauma’? appeared first on Futurity.

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Is News Overload Giving You ‘vicarious Trauma’?

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