Adapted from Learning from Loss by Brittany Collins
Teachers are helping professionals, and it is critical to recognize the ways in which students’ adversity can affect our minds and hearts in times of hardship. When we as practitioners are routinely exposed to others’ traumas, we are at risk for secondary traumatic stress (STS), or compassion fatigue—a “natural but disruptive” reaction that parallels PTSD (Administration for Children and Families n.d.).
Secondary traumatic stress, like grief and trauma, occurs on a spectrum. Its symptoms may include (but are not limited to) feelings of saturation, isolation, and anxiety; depression, dissociation, and nightmares; and insomnia, physical ailments, and feelings of helplessness or powerlessness (Administration for Children and Families n.d.). When students’ losses and traumas poke at or reignite our own, we may experience “arousal and avoidance” (NCTSN Secondary Traumatic Stress Committee 2011, 2) and respond with a number of understandable but misaligned mechanisms: retreating rather than reaching out, or reacting with frustration, deflection, or denial (Haley 2015). Though paradoxical, these reactions often come from a place of caring, and they are grounded in biological responses as valid as those that our students experience after a loss. We care about young people’s well-being, and we often feel powerless—a sense of learned helplessness—because we cannot change the circumstances that are causing young people pain.
Even if we know that listening, talking, and bearing witness hold the power to heal, that we have the agency to make a difference, “the essential act of listening to trauma stories may take an emotional toll that compromises professional functioning and diminishes quality of life” (NCTSN Secondary Traumatic Stress Committee 2011, 2). The students whom we care about can consume our consciousness and cause us pain. The profession that infuses our life with purpose may also leave us feeling powerless. We may burn out of once-meaningful relationships and perhaps our job as a whole.
But this does not have to be the cost of our caring.
Radical Reckoning
The first step in preventing and addressing STS is to tune in, non-judgmentally, to our own internal realities—the opposite, and at times uncomfortable, truths that we carry into the classroom. We can acknowledge the judgments we make and the irritations we hold when students’ losses and traumas result in behaviors that challenge us. We can honor the impulse to avoid or shut down difficult conversations about loss and grief. We can feel the unease in our stomachs when we wonder whether our words were effective, when we wonder whether to say any words at all.
We know that young people deserve not only our consideration but also our reconsideration. We teach because we believe in students’ growth and change; their ability to evolve and adapt is central to the experiences of teaching and learning.
When teachers are overburdened and emotionally unavailable, the schooling environment may compound trauma for all: teachers experiencing Secondary Trauma Stress (STS) may react to a student with frustration, which then may exacerbate the students’ trauma and result in behaviors that reinforce a teacher’s STS. The cycle of retraumatization reveals how students and teachers collectively and cooperatively influence the climate of the learning environment.
The Three “Selves” of Social-Emotional Support
We must nurture three “selves” to stave off STS: self-efficacy, self-management, and self-esteem.
Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy is the belief in our ability to act with competence. One could have situationally high self-efficacy (“I can absolutely recite Shakespeare’s plays by heart”) but low self-esteem (“Despite my impressive knowledge of plays, I am not smart or worthy of love”). A statement of high self-efficacy in the context of grief work might be “I can make time and space for my grieving students without sacrificing my own well-being.”
Self-Management
Self-management is one’s ability to take ownership of their actions, reactions, well-being, and executive functioning. In the context of grief work, self-care strategies are examples of self-management.
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is one’s belief in their inherent value as a person. In a grief context, a person with low self-esteem may feel inadequate, unworthy, and incompetent, which would impede their ability to connect with students who are struggling. Counteracting such tendencies with positive self-talk and healthy relationships can help restore a sense of esteem.
All of these “selves” influence not only the efficacy of our grief work but also the extent to which we are susceptible to the challenges of that work. It is critical to note that STS is natural, not necessarily within our control, and a serious experience that may require professional intervention and should not be reduced to a set of tips and tricks. However, creating within ourselves an awareness of self-efficacy, self-management, and self-esteem—tracking our own status in relation to each of these entities—offers a foundation for taking care of ourselves as we grapple with loss and as we cultivate our grief-work growth mindsets.
Learning from Loss is your guide to getting started with grief work, providing a path that can help you determine the best course of action in the wake of a loss that impacts a student or school community. You will find research, stories, strategies, activities, and reflection questions that offer a map with which to navigate grief-responsive classroom practices.
