Health
Professionals on the frontline of domestic violence report a heightened awareness of potential dangers in their personal lives, a workplace hazard known as ‘vicarious trauma’. By Madison Griffiths.
The frontline DV workers facing vicarious trauma
Twice a week, Shae* sits across from a handful of men, huddled together in a single group, to talk about why they have abused loved ones and how to stop. Face to face, she considers carefully the sort of risk they pose. Have they ever tried to choke a girlfriend? To track their wife’s movements?
Shae is well-versed in the language of violence – she knows how to recognise a potentially dangerous partner. But one morning, as her boyfriend stirred awake in their shared bed, she kept thinking of an argument the two had had just days earlier. He had said, while angry, that he wanted to hit her.
“I remember feeling like such a hypocrite and so ashamed that I had the gall to even show up to my role,” she says.
Clinical psychologists Lisa McCann and Laurie Anne Pearlman first coined the term “vicarious traumatisation” in 1990, to describe how therapists inevitably became affected by their patients’ admissions. They noticed how psychologists would, over time, bear unique wounds when it came to indirectly witnessing suffering. The disclosures of tearful patients would manifest in the form of intrusive thoughts, heightened suspicion towards others and disillusionment.
According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, more than four out of five workers in the family, domestic and sexual violence sectors are female. Many arrive at such jobs with the innermost knowledge of abuse and its impact, given that as many as a quarter of women in Australia have experienced intimate partner violence. For those who haven’t, their daily proximity to gendered abuse can prove traumatic in and of itself. Women on the frontline quickly become specialists in a pandemonium of violent behaviour. They have sufficient insight, from repeated accounts, to detect it in small details. They have become adept at noticing how abuse can – and does – increase over time.
Given most violence against women is perpetrated by men, it seems inevitable that frontline workers who also date men often proceed with caution. It is, after all, violence that begins in the home. When someone works day in, day out, mapping the boundary lines of violence – the kind perpetrated by loved ones – can they ever safely clock off?
“Sure, it’s not all men [that perpetrate abuse] and I understand this,” Shae tells The Saturday Paper. “But it’s enough men to deter me or have me tread extremely carefully in the dating world. I see some of the worst kinds of human behaviour, therefore I am hyper-aware of what someone can be truly capable of doing under the guise of loving somebody.”
Now single, Shae describes how fastidious she is when it comes to spotting “red flags”, recounting how she will never match with a man on Hinge who says on his profile he values “trust” and “honesty”. Shae is wary that this kind of admission could demonstrate controlling tendencies and she is not taking any chances.
Isabella*, a 24-year-old social worker, describes demand for specialist domestic abuse services as “extremely high”. She regularly assists in having locks changed, security cameras and doors installed and phones, laptops and cars expunged of tracking devices.
She will gather information from child protection services, police officers, schools and hospitals.
Most importantly, she will sit across from victim-survivors – almost always women, she specifies – and ask them gently to describe their experiences. More often than not, they will begin a gruelling account of violence with a single admission: in the beginning “he was nice”.
As a result, Isabella finds herself more jaded when it comes to the idea of dating. “The thought of finishing work after reading, listening and seeing everything that I see, only to go and sit and engage with a man, honestly just feels impossible.”
Yvette Vignando, chief executive of Mary’s House Services, a community-run support provider for women and children affected by domestic and family violence in the northern suburbs of Sydney, acknowledges the presence of vicarious trauma among staff at their refuge. Diligently, they will try to spot it in their colleagues, by looking out for any signs of “anxious styles of communication, [seeming] less able to manage their emotions or appearing to be frequently distracted”.
“Managers have regular conversations with their team members and if they notice signs of possible vicarious trauma, their approaches may include suggesting leave, providing additional supervision opportunities, referral to our employee assistance program for counselling, temporary reduction in workload or duties and suggesting self-care approaches,” she says.
Clinical and forensic psychologist Dr Ahona Guha, who now specialises in treating vicarious trauma, once worked in the intake team at a Victorian domestic abuse support service. “It was one of the more difficult jobs I’ve had because of the unremitting stream of police reports and information about a range of violent offences,” she says. She was able to identify how her tolerance towards men slowly shifted and eventually became “more bitter” and how she would anticipate harm in her day-to-day interactions.
Asked how best to remedy vicarious trauma, Guha encourages her patients to accept and acknowledge how “this work will change you in a range of ways”.
“Have excellent boundaries with things like working late, be caring but don’t rescue, be aware of changes from your baseline, seek out experiences of rest and recreation and notice the good men in your life,” she tells The Saturday Paper.
Vicarious trauma invariably affects Kira*, whose role is to develop social policy for an anti-violence body. Her job requires facilitating regular community-led discussions, where she – guided by the emotional testimony of others – identifies “target areas” of concern in order to design workshops addressing male violence.
“The topics are heavy and confronting. There is a lot of story sharing and a lot of tears in the rooms.”
Hearing the emphatic testimony of victim-survivors about how legislation has failed them is often disheartening. Although she insists she loves her role, Kira describes it as “all-consuming” and “rarely a place to celebrate wins”.
Her boyfriend is her abiding support, the man to whom she will divulge her daily findings and her profound “loathing” of the perpetrators. She often becomes frustrated. “I frequently fluctuate between a disdain for men and then a pity for their existence and, of course – sometimes – this disdain shifts onto my partner.” Kira’s boyfriend regularly allows her to air such grievances. His readiness to show up strengthens their bond, but the space she requires is large, because “the days hold so much grief”.
Arriving home from an interstate work trip that involved bearing witness to countless distressing testimonies, she describes looking at her “beautiful” boyfriend and feeling compelled to pack his bags for him.
“This work demands a lot and is valuable,” Guha says. “But it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
Embedded in this epidemic of domestic violence is an enduring pessimism, which leaves those on its frontline jaded. In a world where women are routinely murdered by the men they love, love can itself become a near-impossible endeavour.
* Names have been changed.
National Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Counselling Service 1800 737 732
Lifeline 13 11 14
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 24, 2025 as "Love’s lost labourers".
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