An empirical study of September 11th (9/11/01) trauma therapists: Identifying the role of vicarious traumatization

This dissertation studied the deleterious effects of trauma therapy on trauma therapists who treated the specific populations directly affected by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and the airline disaster in Pennsylvania. Its purpose was to explore how a past history of personal traumatic events may contribute to increased reported incidence of vicarious traumatization (VT) symptoms in therapists who treat trauma survivors. Therapists who had treated those directly affected by the disasters were recruited via American Red Cross (ARC) Chapter volunteer newsletters and included 26 respondents, of whom 8 (31%) had been diagnosed previously with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The following five instruments were administered: a questionnaire to ascertain respondents' demographic information, professional history, and exposure to survivor clients' trauma material; the Trauma and Attachment Belief Scale and the Impact of Event Scale as measures of VT; the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised; and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. The writer hypothesized that trauma therapists with a personal trauma history (operationalized as prior PTSD diagnosis) would show more negative effects from the work than those without a personal history; that VT would be negatively related to psychological symptomatology; and that trauma work would affect those without a personal trauma history in the area of other-esteem (a subscale of the TABS). Support for the main hypothesis was mixed, as VT measures were strongly related to the IES, but negatively related to the TABS. VT scores were positively related to psychological symptomatology, contrary to the hypothesis. Among those without a personal trauma history, other-esteem was positively related to exposure to clients' trauma, as expected, but the correlation of r = .28 fell short of significance. Discussion focused on resolving the apparently contradictory results. It was concluded that the IES and TABS measured different aspects of the effects of trauma, and that VT differs qualitatively from PTSD.