12th July, 2022

How to Cope With Trauma on the Frontline

With Rachel Morris

Dr Rachel Morris

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On this episode

Have you seen stuff at work that has affected you deeply? Do you sometimes wonder if keeping calm and carrying on as usual is possibly not the best thing to do?

Working on the frontline comes at the expense of many things, physically, mentally, and emotionally. However, this should not be the case. We need to take time and be kind to ourselves in these situations before we could go out and do our jobs.

Dr Caroline Walker joins us again in this episode to discuss how trauma affects healthcare professionals working on the frontline. We talk about some steps we can take to help ourselves and each other process traumatic situations in healthy ways.

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Reasons to listen

  1. Find out what things cause a trauma response in us.
  2. Learn the difference between a normal acute trauma stress response and PTSD.
  3. Discover the three things you should do immediately following any traumatic event.

Episode highlights

05:31

The Inherent Trauma in the Field of Healthcare

10:05

Trauma in the Professional vs Personal Life

12:08

Normal Trauma Response

14:58

Coping with Repeated Trauma

17:15

Recognising Trauma

21:49

Trauma Processing

22:56

Normal Stress Response vs Acute Stress Reaction vs PTSD

24:50

How Trauma Is Treated

27:01

Other Reactions from Traumatic Events

28:26

Tips on Dealing with Traumatic Situations at the Time and After

32:42

The Role of Team Debriefing

35:04

Connecting with Your Normal Support Network

38:57

How to Give Yourself Permission to Thrive

41:06

Caroline’s Top Three Tips for Coping with Trauma

Episode transcript

Caroline Walker: I think the nature of the work we do is inherently quite traumatic, isn’t it? We’re faced day in, day out with life and death and an awful heavy emotional content. One of the hardest burdens we can bear is an untold story. I think that is the case for many, many, many doctors — that we have gone through circumstances, traumatic situations ourselves, as individuals, and we’ve held those inside ourselves, and not necessarily had chance to share what that was like and experience the healing that that can bring. Rachel Morris: Have you seen stuff at…

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