Vicarious trauma can affect the performance and wellbeing of language professionals who experience or internalize someone else’s trauma as they facilitate communication for sensitive and/or traumatic experiences. Language professionals are rarely trained to handle the emotions that can arise from their work, leading to anxiety, high levels of stress, depression, or other mental health issues.
Don’t let vicarious trauma change your perceptions of the world. Our panel of experts and fellow language professionals will answer your questions and provide insight to help prevent and mitigate the effects of vicarious trauma.
Absorbing of another person’s trauma. It affects your physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual health.
“Interpreters seem to experience vicarious trauma differently than other professionals providing aid since they do more than witness the trauma; they channel it.”
Studies show 75%+ of interpreters experience some symptoms of Vicarious Trauma, burnout, and increased stress.
One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else's survival guide.
Graduate of the first class of the University of Houston (UH) Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship (WCE) at Bauer College of Business, Ludmila (Mila) Rusakova Golovine, years later, runs the global language solutions company she presented in her class business plan and then started in 1993. She has grown MasterWord into a top-ranked multi-million-dollar company that delivers language access and enables success of international organizations, projects, and initiatives in over 400 languages globally.
Golovine is the driving force behind MasterWord’s mission to Connect People Across Language and Culture. She is respected nationally and internationally for her innovative management processes and industry-leading client solutions. As a professional translator, interpreter and business leader, she has guided MasterWord’s scope and capabilities, understanding the complexities of the global marketplace and providing her teams the tools to hone razor-sharp plans of action that generate successful results. She excels at providing clients innovative solutions based on creative thinking, strategic planning, the latest in technology and doing business with heart.
Golovine believes community involvement and service on both personal and corporate level are the backbone of any organization. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Mind, Body, Spirit Institute of The Jung Center; Advisory Board of the Beta Academy; chairs the Advisory Subcommittee for the Translation and Interpretation Program at the Houston Community College; is the Strategic Partnerships Manager for the Global Community Programs of Women in Localization; is a Founding member of the Global Coalition of Language Rights; serves on the Survivor Service Committee of the Houston Rescue and Restore Coalition for Victims of Human Trafficking; is a member of TBAT (Texas Business Against Human Trafficking); Member of the Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Taskforce, served on the Board of the Rothko Chapel; and is a member of several professional organizations. She is actively involved in the UN Global Compact and UNESCO Decade of Indigenous Languages initiatives.
She is an advocate of social justice, and a nationally and internationally recognized speaker.
Her work has been recognized by numerous awards, including Houston Business Journal’s 2019 Women Who Mean Business Award as Outstanding Leader in Professional Services; Houston Business Journal’s 2019 Most Admired CEO, HBJ Outstanding CEO of a Medium-Sized Company (2017), Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Gulf Coast Area Finalist (2017), and Congressional Recognition G7 “Excellence in International Service” award (2015).
Dr. Chaoul is the director of the Mind Body Spirit Institute at the Jung Center of Houston. He holds a PhD in Tibetan religions from Rice University, studied in the Tibetan tradition since 1989, and is a senior teacher of The 3 Doors, an international organization with the goal of transforming lives through meditation. In 1999, he began teaching these techniques at the Integrative Medicine Program of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX.
He is also an adjunct faculty member at The University of Texas’ McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, and an instructor at Rice University’s Glasscock School of Continuing Studies and The University of Maryland Integrated Medicine. In addition, he is an advisor to The Rothko Chapel and past board member of The Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance at Rice University, and a founding member of Compassionate Houston.
He has published multiple books in religion and medicine, medical anthropology and the interface of spirituality and healing. Dr. Chaoul has been recognized as a fellow at the Mind & Life Institute.
Elena Langdon, a Portuguese-English community and conference interpreter and interpreter trainer, is the director of the MasterWord Institute. She is certified by the American Translators Association (Portuguese into English translation) and by CCHI (core-certified healthcare interpreter). She holds an M.A. in Translation Studies from UMass Amherst and has been teaching interpreting and translation since 2005. Elena has been on the board of directors of ATA, New England Translators Association, and National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters. For over 6 years Elena worked at a hospital in western Massachusetts, supervising 50 staff interpreters and overseeing translations. While there she took Jon Kabat-Zinn’s course, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (twice!). It changed everything for her, and Elena became an avid proponent of mindfulness for reducing stress and anxiety in all aspects on one’s life, including work. She has given online and in-person workshops on mindfulness to interpreters and incorporated many of its principles in her longer, academic-based interpreting classes.
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