När klienters trauman blir ens egen belastning : En kvalitativ intervjustudie om sekundär traumatisering hos kvinnliga socialarbetare inom socialtjänsten

Sammanfattning

Social workers are a professional group that mostly works with people who are in difficult life situations. Consequently, high demands are placed on social workers to show empathy and provide adequate support to these individuals. At the same time, this can lead to emotional and psychological strains that may result in secondary traumatic stress. The purpose of the study is to examine experiences and coping of secondary traumatic stress at female social workers who work with adults in the social services, to gain an increased understanding of the emotional challenges that the everyday work with clients can entail. In the study, a qualitative method is used through seven semi-structured interviews with social workers. As a theoretical basis, Figley’s theory of secondary traumatic stress, Hochschild’s emotion theory, Lazarus and Folkman’s coping theory and previous research have been used. The results show that the majority of social workers who work with adult’s experiences both symptoms and effects of secondary traumatic stress to varying degrees. The results further show that the social workers use different approaches to handle emotional challenges in their work.