Vicarious Trauma Therapy in Bristol
When carrying other people’s trauma starts changing you
You may be very good at staying steady when other people are falling apart. It may be part of your work, your caring role, or simply what people have always relied on you to do.
But repeated exposure to fear, grief, abuse, crisis or traumatic detail can begin to alter how you feel, think and relate — often long before you recognise it as trauma.
Vicarious trauma is the cumulative effect of taking in other people’s traumatic experiences. It is more than ordinary tiredness. It can change your sense of safety, trust, hope and connection, and follow you out of the room long after the work itself has finished.
You may feel numb, irritable, over-responsible or unusually watchful. You may struggle to switch off, pull away from people you love, or begin to doubt work that once felt meaningful. Sometimes the clearest sign is simply that you no longer feel quite like yourself.
What This Work Is For
Vicarious trauma is not resolved by becoming less caring. Nor is it a matter of learning to tolerate more.
The work is to understand what you have taken in, what it has begun to change, and where professional responsibility has become entangled with guilt, vigilance or the belief that you must keep carrying what other people cannot.
Our work may include:
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Recognising the impact without treating it as weakness or professional failure
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Distinguishing what belongs to your own history from what has accumulated through the work
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Understanding changes in trust, safety, intimacy, hope or your view of other people
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Restoring boundaries that protect your capacity without requiring you to become detached
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Finding a way to remain present in your work or caring role without disappearing inside it
I work relationally, with careful attention to both the person and the role they have learned to occupy. This is not performance coaching or a generic self-care package. It is psychotherapy for the person behind the professional or caring role.
Who I Work With
I work with adults whose professional, voluntary or caring roles bring them into repeated contact with trauma, abuse, crisis, loss or human suffering.
This may include:
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Psychotherapists, counsellors and other mental-health practitioners
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Doctors, nurses, paramedics and other healthcare professionals
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Social workers, safeguarding professionals and victim-support workers
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Emergency-service workers and people working within the criminal justice system
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Journalists, researchers and others repeatedly exposed to traumatic testimony or material
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People carrying sustained responsibility for someone affected by trauma
You do not need to be falling apart for the work to have affected you. Vicarious trauma often develops quietly, behind competence.
You may notice that:
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Other people’s experiences continue to occupy your mind after the work has ended
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You feel numb, irritable, unusually watchful or less emotionally available
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Your sense of trust, safety or hope has changed
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You avoid particular stories, cases or situations because you have reached capacity
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You feel guilty about switching off, stepping back or setting limits
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Your own history is being stirred by what you repeatedly witness
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The role has begun to consume more of you than you intended to give
You may still be functioning well. You may still care deeply about the work. The question is not whether you can continue carrying it. It is what continuing to carry it in this way is costing you.
Who I Am
I’m Jimi Katsis, a consultant psychotherapist with more than 30 years’ experience working with developmental, relational and vicarious trauma.
My approach is relational, psychodynamic and trauma-informed. I pay attention not only to symptoms, but to the role you occupy, the material you have absorbed, the history it may have touched, and what happens between us as we speak about it.
People affected by vicarious trauma are often practised at remaining composed. You should not have to perform that competence here, explain why the work affected you, or turn your distress into a professional case presentation.
Psychotherapy is not clinical supervision, performance management or career advice. I will not tell you whether to remain in a role or leave it. The work is to understand what it is doing to you, so that your choices become yours again.
How This Works
Sessions are one-to-one, confidential and shaped around what you need. I work primarily online.
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We begin by looking at the exposure you have been carrying and what has changed — in your body, your relationships, your work, your sense of safety, or the way you see other people and the world.
You will not be asked to recount traumatic material in unnecessary detail or prove that you have been affected badly enough. We work at a pace that allows us to understand the impact without simply exposing you to more of it.
Vicarious trauma is not always an individual problem. Workload, organisational culture, inadequate support, repeated exposure and impossible responsibility can all be part of what is happening. Therapy should not turn those conditions into a personal failure of resilience.
We make room for the whole picture: what belongs to the work, what may connect with your own history, what can be changed, and what is not yours to keep carrying.
Some people come for a focused period of work. Others need longer. We decide together and review as we go.
A First Conversation
You do not need to arrive with a diagnosis or a complete account of what has happened.
A free 15-minute conversation gives us space to consider whether what you are experiencing may be connected to vicarious trauma, and whether I am the right person to work with.
You can:
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Tell me briefly what has brought you here
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Ask how I work and what psychotherapy might involve
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Discuss whether online sessions or in-person work in Bristol would suit you
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Get a sense of whether speaking with me feels straightforward enough to continue
You do not need to disclose traumatic details during this conversation. Nothing has to be decided there and then. If we both think the work could be useful, we can agree the next step.
