Vicarious Traumatization: The Impact of Personal Characteristics on Cognitive Schemas of Trust and Safety Among Social Workers Who Are Probation Officers in Israel

Description of the problem: Probation officers who treat perpetrators (offenders), are constantly exposed to human-induced, usually deliberately, trauma. Research suggests that when trauma is brought about by another human being, consequences may be more devastating; therefore, it is more likely that these therapists will experience disruptions in cognitive schemas of trust and safety

Objective: This study aims to explore whether attachment styles of adult probation officers are correlated with disruptions in cognitive schemas of trust and safety (Vicarious Traumatization - VT) and whether they moderate the relationship between personal trauma history and cognitive schemas.

 

Methods: 189 adult probation officers in Israel (all licensed social workers) completed an anonymous survey. Data was collected using a 4-part self-report questionnaire. Vicarious traumatization was measured using the Trauma and Attachment Belief (TABS); Attachment styles were measured using the Experience in Close Relationships (ECR) Scale; Personal trauma history was measured using the Trauma History Screen (THS); and a socio-demographic section

Results: Univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted in order to explore whether there are significant differences between probation officers with a secure attachment style and those with insecure attachment styles on measures of trust and safety. Findings suggest that probation officers with secure attachment have lower average disruptions in trust and safety than probation officers with insecure attachment. Findings also indicate that attachment style moderates the relationship between personal trauma history and disruptions in the safety schema, but not in trust schema. A Tukey post-hoc analysis revealed that probation officers with secure attachment style had significantly less disruptions in cognitive schemas of trust than the three other attachment styles [F(3,184)=10.44, p<.01], and that those with secure and those with dismissing-avoidant attachment styles had significantly less disruptions in cognitive schema of safety than those with both preoccupied and fearful-avoidant attachment styles [F(3,184)=15.69, p<.01]. In order to explore whether attachment style will moderate the relationship between human-induced personal trauma history and measures of trust and safety, a series of regressions was also performed. Controlling for attachment style, human-induced personal trauma history significantly predicted disruptions in trust schema (p=0.043) and attachment significantly predicted disruption in trust schema when controlling for human-induced personal trauma history (p<0.001). When an interaction effect between the two variables was added, the model remained significant, F(3,184)=11.510, p<0.001 and explained 15.8% of the variance (R2=0.158).

Conclusions: The current study joins research on trauma-focused studies, and its uniqueness lies in its contribution to the identification of risk factors of vicarious traumatization among social workers working with offenders, focusing on the therapist's personal characteristics and referring to aspects of their work. These findings suggest that insecure attachment may increase the risk of developing VT as result of repeated exposure to trauma in the context of working with offenders. Implications include raising awareness of social workers, supervisors and staff management to personal and professional risk factors that may affect job performance.