Article 7 — Four Terms That Are Not Interchangeable

Language for what a community may carry.

Photo by Farshid Tajik on Unsplash

Versión en español: Artículo 7 — Cuatro términos que no son intercambiables

This article is addressed most directly to the community this project concerns. Its purpose is not to prove anything but to supply language, and a reader arriving here without the earlier articles will not be at a disadvantage.

Secondary traumatic stress

Symptoms that mirror PTSD, arising from knowing about a traumatic event experienced by someone else: intrusive memories, avoidance, hypervigilance, sleep disturbance.

The population studied under this heading is professional helpers and immediate family. Whether the same mechanism operates through a shared wall or a classroom is not something this literature addresses.

Vicarious traumatisation

Not symptoms, but internal shifts in belief — about safety, trust, and the predictability of other people.

The change is not experienced as a symptom. It is experienced as having learned something true.

As with the preceding term, the research establishing this construct concerns people whose exposure came through sustained professional contact with trauma survivors.

Compassion fatigue

Secondary traumatic stress combined with burnout — cumulative exhaustion from sustained demand, not a discrete exposure. It should be noted that compassion fatigue has never been a standalone diagnostic category.

Moral injury

Not fear, but guilt and shame — a persistent sense of having failed at something one should have done.

I knew, and I did not do enough.

Moral injury does not require that a person could in fact have acted effectively. It requires only that they believe they should have.

The extension here is the largest in this article and should be marked as such. Whether the construct applies to someone who witnessed a situation they had no standing to intervene in is a reasonable question and an open one.

Why the distinctions matter

These frameworks were developed for professional helpers and immediate family. Whether they apply to a neighbour or a town has not been studied. A name is not evidence — but until now, there was not even a name.