Early career clinicians’ supervision experiences related to secondary traumatic stress when treating child survivors of sexual abuse

The positive and negative effects of working with child sexual abuse for health and social care professionals: A systematic review

“…Wheeler and McElvaney (2018) described the feeling of privilege and honour felt in helping children to realise the world was a safe place and the deep therapeutic connection between child and participant. While Wymer et al (2020) found some participants described feelings of low professional self‐efficacy, others found their self‐efficacy increased with time and experience. Finally, Possick et al (2015) reported CSA therapeutic work was experienced as a process which actualised the participants' abilities to facilitate change.…”

“…Organisational factors that increased participants vulnerability included large caseloads of children with multiple needs (Helpingstine et al, 2021), difficulty navigating systems, poor interagency communication and inadequate supervision (Wymer et al, 2020). Inadequate supervision experiences included inexperienced supervisors, not receiving feedback from supervisors, inaccessible supervision, lack of a supervisory relationship, feeling unsafe to disclose personal impact of CSA work to the supervisor and feeling minimised by the supervisor when participants disclosed personal difficulties (Wymer et al, 2020).…”

“…Supervision was reported to be an important mitigating factor for participants in their CSA work ( n = 3). Wymer et al (2020) found a supportive supervisor who provided space for participants to be honest and vent about CSA work helped validate their distressing experiences.…”

“…Finally, two studies described VT, burnout and secondary traumatisation (Helpingstine et al, 2021; Wymer et al, 2020). They described the physical and psychological symptoms of VT and burnout.…”

“…Possick et al (2015) reported participants experienced extreme emotional sensations where the distress was more emotionally salient than the positive emotions. Similarly, Wymer et al (2020) reported an oscillation between feeling desensitised by the traumatic content and struggling to offer empathy versus feeling overly connected and struggling to distance themselves. Two studies reported participants experienced their emotional responses as somatic symptoms such as headaches and stomach ulcers.…”