S147. Compassion Fatigue: Avoiding Vicarious Traumatization in the CNF Classroom

Liberty Salon L, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four
Saturday, February 11, 2017
10:30 am to 11:45 am

 

As class sizes and teaching loads increase at public institutions, creative nonfiction professors find themselves reading thousands of pages per semester of firsthand traumatic narrative. In addition to having little training to identify psychological distress in our students, they are also ill-equipped to recognize the effects of vicarious traumatization in ourselves. This panel, comprised of CNF professors and a clinical psychologist, discusses the symptoms of vicarious trauma as well as coping strategies.


Participants

Moderator:

Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman teaches creative nonfiction writing at Northern Kentucky University, where she is an assistant professor. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Dogwood, and O: The Oprah Magazine.

Justin St. Germain is the author of the memoir Son of a Gun. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Tin House, Barrelhouse, Hobart, the Best of the West anthology, and elsewhere. He attended the University of Arizona and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. He teaches at Oregon State.

Bonnie Friedman is the author of the books Writing Past DarkThe Thief of Happiness, and Surrendering Oz: A Life in Essays, longlisted for the PEN award in the Art of the Essay. Her work has appeared in The Best American Movie WritingThe Best Writing on Writing, and The Best Buddhist Writing.

Dr. Samantha Rodman is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Maryland. She works with adults and couples. Dr. Rodman is also the founder of DrPsychMom.com, and the author of How to Talk to Your Kids About Your Divorce and 52 Emails to Transform Your Marriage.

Lauren Fath holds a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri and an MFA from Oregon State University. Her essays have appeared in Fourth Genre, Post Road, and poemmemoirstory, among others. She is an assistant professor of English at New Mexico Highlands University.

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