Vicarious Resilience
Just as we are impacted by the trauma of others, we are also impacted by their resilience.
Vicarious resilience refers to the strength and meaning that people can gain when supporting others who have gone through traumatic experiences.
Vicarious resilience can lead to: positive changes in perspective and life goals; enhanced self-awareness; hope; increased resourcefulness; self-awareness and self-care practices; as well as increased consciousness about power and privilege [1][2].
Vicarious trauma and vicarious resilience are distinct but interconnected processes that can occur at the same time.
Visiting is a form of solidarity, and the relationships between visitors and people in detention should be built on mutuality. Visitors often speak about how much they have gained and learnt from their connections with people in detention, and how valuable these relationships have been for them.
“I suppose we don’t often think about things in this way, but if you’ve got good friends and think about what they mean to you, and then say if you meet a refugee, you realise that you’re meeting a very remarkable person, who’s coped with things that would absolutely frighten me. I mean how would I cope? I really rarely like to think about it. But they have, and they’re coping now, so often in such rotten situations that are nonsense and disgraceful, but they’re still coping, wonderfully. And you can talk and laugh with them about things. And meeting people like that really makes one’s life worth living, and if we don’t want people like that to live in this place... well, we’re mad.”
Reverend John Alleyne, from Hidden Stories: Commemorating 20 years of supporting immigration detainees (2014)
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