Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock.

Past episodes of BFTA have focused on patients in the psychiatric abyss. But what happens when the person in crisis is the therapist?

This is the first of a series of explorations of therapists in crisis and how they moved

forward and found strength, wisdom, and meaning.

Today's episode is about vicarious trauma, when the patient's trauma story permeates the therapist and begins to haunt their lives.

My most powerful vicarious traumatization occurred in the second year out of my residency.

As my new patient dutifully answered my questions, we got to the part about sexual trauma.

She then slowly opened up about a horrific

assault that took place years before. And as she went into the graphic details of what had happened,

I noticed tears streaming down my face. She was so engrossed in relating her story that it took

her a few seconds to notice my tears. Then she frantically started

trying to reassure me. It's okay, really, she said, I've done a lot of healing over the years.

That assault was really far away. I'm so, so sorry if my story was too hard for you. To this day,

I can't visit an unnamed Colorado town without vividly imagining what happened

to her there.

And in some ways it seems kind of pathetic on my part.

I'm crying and she's trying to reassure me and take care of me, but the therapist out

there listening to this will know what I mean.

In today's episode, Samantha describes coming out of her Masters of Social Work program

with essentially no psychotherapy training, but with enthusiasm and excitement and a commitment

to help others, but she quickly finds herself in over her head on one particular case.

A young woman whose story and very brief attempted therapy still haunts her today.

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