Activate your support network, talk your experiences through as much as you can whilst maintaining participant confidentiality. Use colleagues/peers/supervisors, friends, partner... #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
If you as the researcher are triggered: hold/touch/fiddle with something to ground you, move onto the next question if you feel at emotional risk, if you really have to, apologise and say you need to "grab a glass of water" to leave the room for a minute #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
Consider how to support participants if they feel distressed hours, days or weeks after the interview. Can debrief sessions be offered? What if you can't but they want to talk again? Will you give a resource list for support organisations? #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
Flag up for participants in information given in advance (participant information sheets) if topics might be upsetting, highlighting that participation is optional and the interview can be paused or terminated at their request #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
When someone is triggered it could look like agitation (hyperarousal) or they could pass straight through fight/flight into "freeze" mode - very subdued, monotonous or unable to answer, sitting very still (hypoarousal). Both are forms of dysregulation #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
Give the participant options if they are visibly triggered - ask if they want to move on to a less distressing question, take a longer break, reschedule to discuss another time #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
The facilitators recommend stopping participants if they appear to be becoming stressed/distressed and refocusing their attention. Suggest leading them in a grounding exercise, e.g. asking them to touch something and describe how it feels #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
It needs particular consideration when the researcher has chosen their topic because of their own lived experience in the topic area. The brief therapeutic input students services offer PhD students is not adequate #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky #ResearcherSafety
In the mental health sector, it is expected that therapists will be given supervision to prevent secondary trauma. This simply may not exist in research institutions. It may be down to you as a researcher to take care of your own psychological safety
#TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
Listening to participants' traumatic experiences can cause vicarious/secondary traumatic stress for researchers. What support might be available to you? This is not always considered by institutions #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
Ongoing stressors from being marginalised (e.g. lived experiences of racism) are just as likely to lead to a trauma response as a "classically" traumatic one-off incident such as a life-threatening accident #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
Facilitators highlighting that trauma and attachment theories emerged in a particular cultural context - trauma responses globally might look very different to those we expect if our theory comes from a largely white, Western, mostly male perspective #TraumaSensitiveResearch #AcademcSky #PhDSky
