Regardless of whether lawyers have a personal trauma history, they can suffer the effects of vicarious trauma; however, the impact of being in an environment that constantly engages with trauma in an adversarial way can be even more complicated for someone with a traumatic past. What follows are my own non-scientific non-expert thoughts based on my own experiences.
Opening Comments
Trauma is, for obvious reasons, considered to be highly emotional subject matter. As I've addressed before (e.g., here and here), as lawyers we tend not to be very comfortable with the idea of being emotionally vulnerable. To do our jobs, we need to be able to think in a highly principled way. Not only must we be able to interpret and apply the law itself, we also need to comply with often very rigid rules of professionalism and ethics. Therefore we need to be capable of being calm, clear-headed and rational.
I can't speak for everyone but from my own experience I can say that being traumatized does not prevent us from being able to do that. The fact that we have suffered harm in the past that deeply affected us does not render us incapable of thinking like a lawyer and conducting ourselves in accordance with rules and principles. From my first moment of practice, I have been keenly aware of what my role as a lawyer does and does not demand of me. I have also been very conscious of the fact that my own history has a major emotional impact on me. I therefore took great care at all relevant times to ensure that my decisions were based on the appropriate considerations and not unduly impacted by my personal history. This kind of exercise was mandatory for me as someone with such an emotionally charged history, but that process shouldn't be unique to me. It's an exercise we all should be engaging in, whether we have trauma in our backgrounds or not. We all have our own personal experiences that shape our view of the world and we need to constantly be aware of the ways in which those experiences affect our ability to do our work.
Of course, that's not to say that my past experiences have never been relevant to my job performance. The fact that I have a personal understanding of what it's like to be harmed helps me to be more compassionate and understanding in furtherance of the legitimate objectives that my role in the system requires me to pursue. Nor is the process of reflecting on our own experiences to better understand the world around us an unusual thing to do. Our ability to understand and empathize with the experiences of others will often be informed by our own history (regardless of whether that history includes trauma). It shouldn't be the only factor but there's nothing wrong with drawing on this. It can in fact be a strength (and has for me), provided that it's done in a cautious and principled way, without losing sight of our proper role and task.
Some Ways My Trauma History Has Affected Me
But, yes, as someone who does work that often involves traumatic facts and situations, I need to be ever-conscious of its impact on me. There's plenty written already about vicarious trauma generally. I won't revisit that here. Rather, I will speak a bit about what it's like to be someone with a personal trauma history engaged in a system in which trauma is so often the subject matter.
First, let me start with the ways in which my background is a strength:
- The fact that the world can be profoundly unkind is not new to me. As a result of that awareness and my own personal way of coping with it, I have a high tolerance for hearing others' stories, even when heartbreaking and horrific, and I almost never want to turn away because of how difficult this may be. This means I'm capable of hearing, understanding and empathizing with the stories of those who have been deeply traumatized because I'm not constantly fighting against a desire to avoid having my worldview shattered by hearing them. I have no stake in protecting an "innocent" and sheltered view of the world since I didn't have one to begin with. Note: this may be different for other trauma survivors who may want to escape any reminders of their past experiences. We all cope differently and need to make efforts to be aware of how our past may be affecting us.
- Due to the way I have processed my own trauma, despite having no claim to have "healed" from it, I have already done a great deal of the work of processing, identifying and rejecting the kinds of impermissible myths and stereotypes that people without such awareness can sometimes so readily lapse into.
- The intersection of my experience of vicarious trauma and my awareness of my own trauma has forced me to constantly engage in the thoughtful self-awareness exercise described above, which has enhanced my ability to practice law in a principled, carefully reasoned way, while also constantly monitoring and remaining in touch with my own emotions to the best of my ability (something none of us can realistically expect to do perfectly).
- Having to read, listen to, and respond to derisive and/or insensitive comments, pronouncements, and questioning by members of the profession (judges, colleagues, opposing counsel, etc.) in relation to traumatized people, based on long-discredited myths, attitudes and stereotypes, knowing all the while that those very same derisive/insensitive attitudes could easily have been applied to me. Consequently, not only have I endured the demoralizing experience of observing how our system is sometimes not very trauma-informed and the toll this takes on participants, but I also by implication am left to wonder how I would be judged and treated by those with whom I work if they knew of my history. A few caveats: This is not meant as an attack on our justice system. I'm not offering any assessment of how far or how often I feel the system falls short in this regard here, but I don't think it should be all that contentious to observe that it sometimes does. I'm deliberately not being more specific about this because I try to avoid sharing my particular views about the criminal justice system here. Moreover, I'm not suggesting that it falls short to the detriment of one "side" or the other. I'm well aware that this is an incredibly complex issue. I've been on both sides of the adversarial process (defence/prosecution, at both the trial and appeal level) and know very well that trauma is not a factor that affects only those on one side. Accused people are frequently very traumatized, as are complainants and other witnesses and participants. I'm not trying to say anything specific about what it means for our justice system to be trauma-informed. I'm simply asserting in a general sense that the more egregiously non-trauma-informed the system is the greater a toll it might take on trauma survivors who have to work within it (and the greater a toll it has taken on me in those instances). Those who are interested in reading what others have to say about what it means to have a trauma-informed justice system can start with the resources here (Note: I have no affiliation with that site and take no position about the accuracy or validity of any of the resources listed, nor have I even read most of them--I'm just passing them along as a place to start for those who may be interested in a topic I'm declining to cover).
- Having to sit through discussions and read articles about the impact of vicarious trauma and mental health generally that fail to acknowledge or address the fact that many of us undoubtedly have our own trauma histories, with the sense of exclusion and alienation that I have felt as a result (I've written extensively about this on the blog as well as in this article).
- Having to sit through continuing professional development events and other professional environments (e.g., lunchrooms and lawyers' lounges) in which colleagues and presenters speak "shoptalk" and joke in a way they never would in court, giving even freer reign to the lack of sensitivity referenced above. The fact that it never seems to occur to colleagues and presenters that some of us may have personal experiences with these topics (or if it does occur to them, they feel we should just "suck it up and be tough about it") is itself a harm and an unnecessary one at that.
- Always having to fear what colleagues and others would think of me if they knew my history and what (mistaken) assumptions they would make. Would they (wrongly) feel I'm too emotionally affected to do my job in a principled way? Would my credibility as a professional be tarnished by the application of those myths and stereotypes that unfortunately still manifest themselves all too often in our profession? Now that I have revealed more about myself, I definitely wonder about how career-limiting a move this has been (not that I regret it, since my goal is to help others feel less alone and help change the culture).
It's an obvious thing to say (and one that's outside the scope of this blog to address), but I do need to point out that the thing that would most reduce the re-traumatizing effect of my work on me would be to have a more trauma-informed system in which to work. Addressing this would mean tackling the question of what it would mean for the justice system to be trauma-informed in a broader sense with all the other relevant objectives in play. To be clear, I'm not actually suggesting any specific measures or even saying that lawyer wellness should be a guiding principle in how the system itself is structured. I'm just pointing out that enhanced lawyer wellness would be a side-benefit of having a more trauma-informed system. As I've already pointed out, however, the answer to how this might work is entirely outside the scope of this blog since it involves addressing the justice system directly. I'm simply saying that a work environment in which insensitive and/or harmful comments are frequently made (both officially and unofficially, both seriously and in a gratuitous casual offhanded way), when those comments actually have no legitimate place in the process (e.g., are based on decisively discredited myths and stereotypes and an improper understanding of the law) will potentially be experienced as harmful to lawyers who have a personal trauma history. Moreover, my own view is that there's no reason why the strength to routinely endure unchecked illegitimate attitudes about the group to which one belongs should be a prerequisite for legal practice. The same goes for comments infused with other stereotypes that are unacceptable on their own terms and may also compound the experience of trauma for some among us (e.g., reflecting racist or sexist myths). If we want to minimize the impact that exposure to trauma has on the professionals working in the system, then we therefore also need to in some way or other look at the way the system and professional culture operate (and ask whether they are sufficiently trauma-informed, anti-racist, anti-sexist, etc.). But again it's outside the scope of this blog to address those issues with respect to the justice system itself and there would be far greater considerations at play in any such discussion.
Obviously we will not create a perfectly trauma-informed system any time soon and I'm not suggesting that traumatized people will be unable to participate unless we do so. Lawyers with a history of trauma are autonomous adults who can decide for themselves the impact that exposure to an imperfect system has on them. I'm just making the very basic point (that has undoubtedly been made by others before me) that the kind of justice system we create and the professional culture we cultivate have an impact on everyone who is exposed to them, including the legal professionals. At the very least, however, I am asking that we strive to be more trauma-informed in professional environments (conferences, lawyers lounges, lunchrooms) in which those other considerations are not directly at play. So for instance, in my view, some thought should be directed towards how not to make (or at least reduce) gratuitous derogatory or insensitive comments and jokes about trauma in such environments as if they are perfectly fair game regardless of the lived experiences of several people in the room (the same way we would hopefully avoid making gratuitously insensitive, stereotype-infused and/or derogatory comments about any other group). I'm not suggesting that this needs to be enforced in any particular manner. It is just something I'm asking my colleagues to consider as one factor among others when they decide how to comport and express themselves. If the comment is unkind and serves no real purpose, then maybe consider (as an exercise of decency) the possibility of phrasing your point some other way.
So both individually and as a profession, in my view, one of the best ways to be more inclusive of those who have been harmed by trauma and/or other forms of injustice (e.g., racism/sexism) is to constantly and explicitly strive to create the most trauma-informed, anti-racist, anti-sexist (etc.) system and professional culture that we can. It doesn't mean discarding or necessarily overriding other objectives or stepping out of our legitimate roles. But it does mean recognizing that gains and losses in this regard will have an impact on which lawyers feel welcome and comfortable among us (with an obvious potential impact on lawyer well-being, as well as diversity and inclusion), so in my view we all need to do what we can to make the environment more hospitable without compromising our other duties and objectives (although it may well be argued that many of these other duties and objectives should be heavily informed by these objectives of being trauma-informed, anti-racist, anti-sexist, etc., something that's outside the scope of this blog).
In addition to removing the unnecessary ways in which our profession can re-traumatize lawyers with personal trauma histories, my view is that we should also (through the applicable lawyer wellness measures already in place) find ways to help lawyers with traumatic pasts recognize the impact their experiences have on them and draw on their own strengths in whatever way works for them (the strengths that enabled them to survive those experiences and graduate from law school and become a lawyer). Moreover, we need to deliver mental health supports (including in relation to vicarious trauma) in a way that recognizes the perspectives and unique needs of those who have been personally traumatized (rather than just treating them as an exception or an afterthought, only to be addressed when raised). And, even if there is no will to actually make the system and the professional culture more trauma-informed, we need to at least recognize the toll that it takes to be a traumatized person working within a legal system and culture that aren't always kind to trauma survivors, and provide supports to help address that harm (starting with basic compassion and sensitivity).
As always, please note that I am a lawyer, not a mental health professional of any kind. I have no expertise in trauma or mental health. Also, please note that any opinions and views expressed in this blog are solely my own and are not intended to represent the views or opinions of my employer in any way. For more information about the purpose of this blog, please see here and for a bit more information about my personal perspective on this issue, please see "my story" here
I am very grateful to have received a "Clawbie" Award for this blog (which reflects the importance of this topic): https://www.clawbies.ca/2019-clawbies-canadian-law-blog-awards/
For some of my external writing on this topic, see:
- https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/opinion/a-more-inclusive-discussion-on-the-impact-of-trauma-on-lawyers-mental-health-is-needed/276166
- https://www.cbabc.org/BarTalk/Articles/2020/February/Features/Speaking-Up-About-Trauma-and-Mental-Health
- https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/opinion/changing-the-conversation/326240
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