Secondary Trauma & Related Stresses

Secondary trauma or trauma exposure response are umbrella terms for the array of trauma and empathy-related conditions or injuries that affect practitioners as they engage in their work of serving traumatized or otherwise suffering clients. Secondary trauma encompasses secondary traumatic stress disorder, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. 

In addition to the physical, emotional, and mental impacts of trauma exposure, there may be added sources of stress from bureaucratic challenges, constantly changing policy, organizational factors, and the weight of systemic injustices against clients. These may create a tension between a practitioner's values and the demands and processes of the immigration court system in which they work. Thus, secondary trauma is closely associated with other workplace stresses including burnout, moral distress, loss, and grief.
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On other pages of this website you can find more detailed definitions of these conditions, solutions for coping and healing from them, and additional resources. Below you can find a guidebook created to summarize this information.

Secondary Trauma Guidebook

Offers key terms, an explanation of the neurobiological basis of stress & trauma, and methods for preventing, coping, and healing

About Me

My name is Cali Castellanos-- I am an independent researcher formerly affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin Anthropology Department and the Mellon Engaged Scholar Initiative at UT, a fellowship for humanities research with a focus on engaged scholarship. I graduated in December 2020 with a B.A. in Anthropology and a minor in Sociology from UT Austin.

For my senior thesis research in the Department of Anthropology I interviewed 12 nonprofit immigration attorneys about their experiences of policy and trauma during the Trump administration due to individual, organizational, and systemic factors. After writing an academic thesis, I wanted to take my research a step further by creating a guidebook and compiling other resources that would be useful to the attorneys I interviewed (as well as other attorneys and immigration practitioners).

I will begin taking classes at UTSA in Fall 2021 working towards a Master of Social Work, after which I hope to work in the field of immigration advocacy.

Austin & San Antonio, TX                       [email protected]