Strengths for Helping Professionals Exposed to Secondary Trauma: A Scoping Review

Helping professionals working with people who have experienced trauma are at risk of developing psychological distress. To date, most studies exploring psychological distress among helping professionals have focused on risk factors associated with the development of adverse reactions to secondary trauma, and few have identified strengths or protective factors, which may buffer and/or alleviate distress. Therefore, this scoping review uses the Resilience Portfolio Model (Grych et al., 2015) to synthesize literature on individual and environmental strengths, which may mitigate adverse reactions to secondary trauma in helping professionals. Utilizing the CINAHL, PsycArticles, PsycInfo, and MEDLINE databases, 43 articles published between 1990 and May 2023 from over 20 countries were identified. The findings suggest that professionals draw upon a portfolio of meaning-making, regulatory, interpersonal, and ecological strengths to increase their protective resources. Most studies identified were quantitative, and usually explored organizational factors, such as supervision. Further empirical investigations could help identify individual strengths that could be targeted within interventions to protect professionals against the impact of secondary traumatic stress. Additionally, more research is needed to investigate the interconnectedness of individual, organizational, and systemic factors that buffer helping professionals from the deleterious effects of trauma work.