trauma
Lawyers More Likely to Experience Second Hand Shock
By Ellie Izzo, PhD & Vicki Carpel Miller, BSN, MS, LMFT
Daniel, a family lawyer, was referred to us for treatment by his primary care physician, following an annual physical. He had met with his doctor due to multiple physical annoyances which included chronic headaches and digestive problems. When his doctor found nothing medically wrong, he suggested that Daniel might be experiencing physical symptoms due to psychological stress and referred him to us.
Daniel presented as a man sophisticated in many dimensions. He was well dressed, well spoken, confident, calm and charming and really didn’t understand why he was referred for a Vicarious Trauma consultation. Daniel’s success as a family lawyer had its benefits and its disadvantages. While he was very conscious of all the benefits he had enjoyed from a thriving practice, he was less conscious of how the stress in his work affected his health. After some interaction with him about the definition of Vicarious Trauma and after asking him the assessment questions, he experienced an “aha” moment. He was visibly concerned with how he had unwittingly been traumatized through the nature of his work.
Cindy Adcock, Part 3
Part 3: Cindy Adcock
Cindy talks about the recommendations that law school be integrative and how Charlotte Law is building a curriculum responsive to those recommendations.
She also talks about the trauma that the legal team experiences in capital cases and how important it is to educate law students about the importance of taking care of themselves. How does one attend an execution one day and then go to work the next day? She points out that it is NORMAL to be traumatized by some of the situations lawyers deal with and that we need to develop a language and space for talking about it.
Cindy Adcock, Part 2
In Part 2, Cindy talks about the journey of representing clients sentenced to death and about the executions of her clients and the transformation she created from the experience, a restorative justice project that brings together family members on both sides of capital cases.
She also talks about her life as a legal educator focused on pro bono and experiential learning. She shares the mission of Charlotte Law School as a school focused on service.