Clinician who was assaulted shares advice on recovery
Attacked at work? Don't be a victim twice
By VIVIAN AFUWAH
Picture this: a male, approximately 205 pounds, solid, stocky, strong and psychotic, suddenly coming up behind you. He grabs the back of your neck and starts choking you, and this assaultive behavior escalates, charged with intensity.
This was my personal experience with trauma in the workplace. Not only was I petrified, so were the other patients. It took an equally strong male staff member who intervened to save me.
Don’t be passive
When we experience a trauma, we feel victimized. But we must not be passive. Empowerment is key to addressing trauma and danger in the workplace.
As social workers, we advocate, make referrals, and provide supportive therapy and psychotherapy for our clients. But when we are traumatized by a client, we are often overwhelmed.
Personal violence by clients towards clinicians has its own special kind of grieving process. It can be as painful as grieving over death and sometimes just as enduring. The trauma you have experienced grips you with powerful feelings, and if left unresolved, it burrows deep within.
Violence often evokes feelings of fear, anger and a sense that you are unsafe in your environment. This can cause a true emotional crisis. For a while, you forget how to advocate. Yes, even for yourself. And the aftershock causes a lot of self-reflection on your chosen profession.
Remember the transition from the life we had prior to attending graduate school? Remember applying, getting accepted, doing the work, graduating, and then deciding to enter the field and/or going on to an advanced degree?
How rewarding it felt!
But after being assaulted on the job, you ask yourself:
“Is this worth this kind of pain?”
Help yourself heal
Like most traumas, a healing process after a workplace assault does begin to take place, although initially you may have feelings of insecurity about your ability to provide effective clinical practice and even about your own safety in the workplace.
Don’t trivialize the real day-to-day hazards of your work. Fear is a powerful emotion and your perception of risk does not signify that you are weak. Psycho-biological arousal is what is taking place with your emotions and eventually the high intensity subsides.
Talk to your family, colleagues
How did I work through the recovery process? I did not remain silent!
My recovery started at home, where I have always taught my children to be compassionate toward people with visible and not-so-visible disabilities.
After my trauma, I continued to speak those very words. My children, however, asked their father, my husband, “to go and talk to the man who hurt Mommy.”
I had to explain, “Your father can’t do that, because you can’t talk rationally to an irrational person.”
Talking to my family was key to my emotional recovery.
Their support encouraged me to build a new beginning.
My recovery process continued with colleagues and friends. I received overwhelming support from them.
However, I have found that not enough attention is paid to clinicians by those in charge.
Consulting with colleagues is crucial. Discuss the problem of violence in the healthcare industry. I am sure you will hear, as I did, other accounts of violence by clients.
As a result of my ordeal, I met many wonderful people who were interested in trauma in the workplace and they offered support.
I learned what questions to ask in order to navigate my way through my mixed emotions. I discovered networks and organizations that have a commitment to a collaborative consensus process that features sharing of resources for preventing violence by clients against workers.
You can find help
I don’t have answers to how violence in the workplace can be prevented.
I do know that in other professions, such as law enforcement or corrections, when a worker is assaulted on the job, swift action is taken. In healthcare, however, support is slow in coming, if at all. Often, workers must help themselves to connect with support services.
Among the resources I used was PEF’s Occupational Health and Safety Department which sent literature to help me navigate the Workers’ Compensation process.
Also, I received help from a crisis-intervention-support team at South Beach Psychiatric Center that provides work-site counseling and debriefing to injured workers. Don’t wait for help. Get involved today!
Editor’s note: Vivian Afuwah is a PEF member with 16 years of state service. She is a clinical social worker 2 at the Shirtz Residence in Brooklyn.
If you are interested in workplace violence prevention, trauma response and recovery, call the PEF Health & Safety program at 1-800-342-4306, ext. 385, and begin working with your colleagues and management today.