A review by bookreviewswithkb
Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others by Connie Burk, Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky

informative

4.0

i really really needed this book. i was like a sponge, soaking it all up. at times, it felt like the author was peering into my soul and plastering what she knew i needed to hear onto these pages. as a social worker working as a therapist with youth in residential treatment, the secondary trauma/vicarious trauma is REAL, but something i always minimize. the author calls this “trauma exposure response” and her descriptions really validated my experiences

“i had absorbed and accumulated trauma to the point that it had become part of me, and my view of the world had changed.”

i remember being in grad school and having professors caution against burnout and feeling like yeah okay whatever never could be me. but this work is hard and grueling and i have to take care of myself

what i didn’t love though was the lack of examination of the trauma and harm some of these fields also cause, particularly police work. i also at times felt like the message was similar to “send love and light and you’ve done enough.” there was a lack of an examination of how privilege, racism, and oppression interact with the work of helping professions and the harm white people can and do inflict