Preventing work life imbalance

By Resolve Editor Deb Eccleston

Few would argue that insurance law is a challenging career which can at times be heartbreaking, especially when working with people impacted by catastrophic events.

Talking about the science of trauma at the NZILA 2024 conference, clinical psychologist Dr Sarah Anticich said there had been a “massive increase in distress in the general population”.

And with demand for psychological support exceeding supply, helping professionals that work with people experiencing trauma was an essential part of her job.

Trauma is a response to an event or series of events which are perceived as harmful or life threatening. There are two types of trauma – “Little T” and “Big T”.

Dr Anticich explained that Little T trauma described “micro events” such as failing your driver licence test or not being picked in a school sports team – not massive events but could shape the way we think about ourselves and other people. Big T trauma – what people in the insurance industry deal with most – are significant catastrophic events.

“We know that trauma negatively impacts many aspects of an individual, from psychological wellbeing to emotional wellbeing, physical wellbeing and our ability to function cognitively,” she said.

The science of trauma

Understanding the neuroscience of trauma can help you manage your own “internal state” when dealing with a distressed client on the end of the phone or in a courtroom, she said.

“Don't ever underestimate how powerful you can be on the end of a phone or in support of a client or a colleague, because these events – natural disasters, worldwide catastrophic events – create a cumulative and ripple effect of distress for people,” Dr Anticich said.

“Whether it's a little event or a catastrophic event where people's homes and lives have been significantly disrupted, your role is incredibly important – way more important than anything I could ever do – to help someone manage the impact of their distress.”

As human beings, our ability to form and maintain relationships is our “superpower”, according to Dr Anticich. Connecting with people is important because it promotes brain development.

Yet we live at a time when connection – real human connection – is rare.

“A little person growing up in a hunter-gatherer environment versus today in 2024 experiences about 1/64th of the opportunity to form and maintain connections with people. And that's important because experience promotes brain development,” she said.

“We now live in our own homes with our own rooms, with our own screens, often with noise-cancelling headphones but the ability to form and maintain relationships remains as significant as it did back then.

“Our brains haven't changed significantly, and so the ability to connect with one another, not only day-to-day with your families, but also in work, promoting connection is the number one thing that buffers us from stress and overwhelm.”

How to create connections

Dr Anticich said the most important action to take when feeling overwhelmed by a person’s distress is to connect with them by following a simple, three-step process – acknowledge, validate, respond.

“What I know, above anything else, is that we’re more similar than we are different and we all experience risk factors, we all experience adversity, but we also have protective factors and trauma is one of those things we need to understand in terms of both risk and protective factors,” she said.

“Different people respond in a different way to different experiences, so what that means is when something significant happens, the way someone responds may well be informed by previous experiences.

“Understanding why they are responding the way they are is really important.”

Importance of self-care

Dr Anticich works with many lawyers who are “very high functioning and amazing at what they do” but are feeling extremely burnt out and overwhelmed by the demands of life.

“My aim is to give you the skills and knowledge to understand what we're dealing with and also to buffer you from the overwhelm day to day, because the jobs that you work in are often client facing and you well may experience secondary trauma,” she said. 

“The more I can equip people that work in really specialist roles with the knowledge and skills to be able to look after your wellbeing and buffer from the stress that you're experiencing and the distress on the other end of the phone, the more effective we can be, I think generally, as population.”

Dr Anticich said engaging in positive coping strategies was key to building resilience.

“What we can do in terms of post traumatic growth is promoting those basics of wellbeing,” she said.

That means focusing on actions that are within your control, which she describes as the “pillars of wellbeing” – eat, sleep, move, think, feel, connect.

“Every 24 hours you might want to check on how you’re tracking on these six pillars,” she said.

“You can’t regulate something you’re not aware of.”