Trauma Stewardship - A Book Review by Anne Johnson, WISE DVS

Trauma Stewardship by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk. Las Olas Press. 2007.

I love you and I value the work you do; Read this book. This was the message from my sister when she sent me Trauma Stewardship for my birthday last summer. I didn’t read it right away because I’m rarely interested in “self-help” books. Reading is often an escape for me, and I knew the book would be an invitation to critically explore my experiences. This fall I finally felt ready to open the book. The words and message leapt off the page - I felt understood, validated, heartened, and energized. I am introducing it to you because I think it will speak to many of you at DCYF and DV-SV crisis agencies.

My sister was a student of the author, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, in the Masters of Social Work Program at the University of Washington in Seattle. My sister is a case manager for homeless AIDS patients, and I am a physician and anti-violence advocate. We find comfort in each other. We commiserate often about our clients and patients and the sorrows of life we experience through them. When we are left raw, disillusioned, or cynical after a particularly hard situation, we often ask larger questions about the sustainability and effectiveness of our work. Is our fight really making the world a better place? Can we see hope? Are we too exhausted to keep going?

Bearing witness to the suffering of others impacts us. This is what Lipsky calls our “trauma exposure response.” Others have pathologized this response by calling it “burnout”, “compassion fatigue,” and “secondary trauma.” We hear many touchy-feely messages about “self-care” and “ways to avoid burnout.” Taking care of ourselves is incredibly important, but many of the suggested coping mechanisms are shallow platitudes or at most, band-aids. They leave us feeling insulted. Taking a bath and drinking tea are really going to help me after I’ve witnessed the effects of horrible violence on innocent children? In contrast, Lipsky’s book offers a whole-life and whole-work method to create insight and resilience as we do our important work. She gives us a framework and language to elucidate how we are inwardly and outwardly affected. She helps us understand ways to honor ourselves and the people we serve rather than vilify our inevitable reaction to seeing and hearing about human suffering. She defines this “Trauma Stewardship” as “the entire conversation about how we come to do this work, how we are impacted by our work, and how we subsequently make sense of and learn from our experiences.”

The first section of Trauma Stewardship explains how the exposure to trauma affects us all on an individual level. I appreciate that the author looks to the newest trauma research and discusses how trauma changes our body and spirit, not just our emotional or cognitive state. She goes further to discuss how organizational culture and societal forces are also sensitive to trauma exposure. The message is again holistic. If we can cultivate awareness of the effects of trauma exposure at all levels of our work, healthy change becomes attainable as well. Not only are we able to nurture ourselves, but our new understanding gives us tools to positively change institutional culture and society as a whole.

In the second section, Lipsky names and explains very recognizable reactions we all have at one time or another as we encounter human trauma. Lipsky respectfully normalizes and validates these responses. She explains the details and reasons for feelings of hopelessness, diminished creativity, numbness, minimization, avoidance behaviors, guilt, and addiction, to name a few. These are not responses to fear and condemn, as if feeling them means we are burned out or weak. Instead, we are encouraged to cultivate a simple awareness in an effort to map our individual (as well as organizational) trauma exposure response. Throughout this process, the author reminds us to have deep compassion and patience for ourselves. She even reaches out to CPSWs especially as bearers of some of the most intense trauma exposure.

In the last section, Lipsky gathers wisdom from a variety of spiritual practices to give us options to care for the many parts of ourselves. Whereas other proponents of “self-care” often focus solely on an individual, “balancing” practice, Lipsky doesn’t assume that there is any one answer for many individuals trying to stay resilient. She recognizes that we need to cultivate passion and understand how we operate within our workplace. Readers will take away their own healing strategies that speak to them at the present moment.

Lipsky peppers the book with hilarious New Yorker cartoons. She recognizes the value of humor and irony in the face of pain and suffering. She also includes a number of 2-3 page first-person accounts of workers’ career paths in the helping professions. These honest confessionals hearten the reader. They send the message that we are not alone and we all go through both difficult and joyful times as we learn to understand ourselves and the systems in which we work.

This is a book to be read straight through or in small doses. It can be read again and again, with new insights at each return. It is supportive and loving. Many times it brought me to tears – tears of relief and thankfulness that someone (both the author and my sister) cares about my work so much that she would give me this gift. So, to all you CPSWs and DVS advocates: I care about you and I value the work you do; Read this book.