Understanding & Preventing Vicarious Trauma FULLY BOOKED

Facilitated by Jason Brooker

FULLY BOOKED

Saturday 21 February 2026, 10am – 4pm

North Baddesley Village Hall, SO52 9DT

£40 to HACP members, £50 to non-members

To book, email Zana: info@hacp.co.uk including your mobile number. Once Zana has confirmed your place, please make payment using the following details:

HACP, Sort code: 09 01 51, Account number: 43775502, Ref: Vic Trauma

Course Content and Learning Outcomes

This course is primarily about vicarious trauma, what it is and how to avoid it. We will also look at burnout, in order to establish how they differ from each other. In doing so we will look at the concept of compassion fatigue, following the ideas of Gabor Mate, who suggests that there is in fact no such thing, but rather the person experiencing these ‘symptoms’ has actually lost touch with themselves precisely because they have become too caught up in the world of others.

The experiential part of this course is very much intended to help people to reconnect with themselves through meditation, self-compassion and the exploration of the five levels of self-care as proposed by Babette Rothschild (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and aesthetic).

We will look in depth at empathy and how it can be both a benefit and an enemy of good practice. In particular we will explore ways to control and focus empathy using techniques developed by Babette Rothschild.

Finally in order to improve understanding and self-awareness we will look at the concepts of projective idetification and counter transference, which are crucial to understanding where vicarious trauma might originate.

By the end of the course participants will have a greater understanding of this topic and a real confidence that they can address these issues for themselves. This, in turn, will help them to offer more effective and compassionate care to their clients.

About Jason

I have been working as a counsellor and psychotherapist for nearly ten years. Most of my work currently is with children and young people but I also work with adults, couples and groups (including families). I recently gained a certificate in adoption counselling.

Prior my current work in a school, I helped to set up and run a counselling service for a charity supporting young people who have experienced sexual harm. Prior to that I worked supporting young victims of crime.

This has led me to take a special interest in working with trauma and I have gained many hours of training around this subject with leading professionals in this field, including Stephen Porges, Dan Hughes, Gabor Mate, Pat Ogden and Janina Fisher.

More recently I have been working as a consultant for theatre and film directors and producers as well as delivering workshops for various groups on understanding and preventing burnout.

I hold a support group once a week supporting the parents of abused children.