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by Adam McCormick, MSSW, PhD
Childhood trauma is a profound force that often leaves an indelible mark on the lives of those it touches. For social workers, this imprint can resonate not only in their personal lives but also in their professional work. Over the past three years, I have interviewed countless social workers about the ways their own childhood trauma shows up in their work. Their stories reveal a powerful intersection between personal history and professional practice, shedding light on the unique challenges and resilience of those who dedicate their lives to helping others.
The Generational Imprint of Trauma
Social workers are acutely aware of the generational imprint of trauma. The addiction, mental illness, poverty, and family violence that we address in our work are almost always rooted in early adversity, creating cycles that can feel impossible to break. For many of us, our professional work mirrors these dynamics, and our childhood experiences often find echoes in the lives of the clients we serve.
I know this dynamic intimately. Growing up with a father who was a raging, narcissistic alcoholic, my childhood was marked by chaos and unpredictability. I cannot erase those experiences; they are an undeniable part of my history. Yet, the trauma lies not in the events themselves but in the emotional and psychological wounds they left behind. The fear, shame, and hypervigilance I developed to survive shaped my identity and how I approached relationships and the world around me.
This deeply personal understanding of trauma is one of the reasons I was drawn to social work. Like so many others in our field, I sought to make meaning from my experiences and use them to help others. However, as I have come to learn through my interviews, this connection can be both a gift and a burden. As a social work professor, I was often asked by students how their own childhood trauma might show up in their work. For years, I struggled to provide them with a satisfactory answer. This research was my effort to finally give them, and the broader social work community, a more meaningful and practical answer.
Trauma and Adaptations
Dr. Gabor Maté reminds us, “Trauma is not what happens to us, but what happens inside of us because of what happens to us.” This distinction is vital. Trauma is about the adaptations we develop to survive in a world that feels unsafe or lonely. These adaptations—hypervigilance, people-pleasing, or a relentless drive to achieve—can be both assets and liabilities in our work as social workers.
Many social workers I interviewed shared how their childhoods in volatile households taught them to read people’s emotions with precision, a skill they now use to connect with clients. However, this same sensitivity that makes them so effective in their relationships with clients and colleagues also leaves them vulnerable to emotional exhaustion and secondary traumatic stress.
The Emotional Toll of the Work
Social work is inherently relational. Our clients bring us their pain, their trauma, and their dysregulation, and we meet them with empathy, compassion, and support. As the relational social worker Terry Real eloquently describes, we “loan our cortex” to our clients, helping them move from the fight-or-flight state to a place of calm and clarity. But this emotional labor takes a toll, particularly for those of us whose own childhood histories make us more susceptible to absorbing the stress and trauma of others.
In my early years as a social worker, I often found myself overwhelmed by the emotional weight of my work. I threw myself into every crisis, driven by a deep-seated need to prove my worth and make a difference. This relentless drive was, in many ways, an extension of my childhood adaptations. Just as I had tried to manage the chaos of my father’s addiction, I now tried to fix the lives of my clients. It took years to recognize that this pattern was unsustainable and that my own healing was essential to my ability to help others. It took even longer to realize that I was hardly alone as a social worker whose own childhood trauma adaptations governed my approach to work.
The Hidden Costs of Trauma
For many social workers, the hidden costs of trauma show up in our inability to set boundaries, our struggles with self-care, and our tendency to prioritize the needs of others over our own. Many social workers have described to me how their childhoods taught them to “keep the peace” at all costs. As adults, this translates into a pattern of over-functioning and taking on more than their share of responsibility at work. While their colleagues, clients, and supervisors might admire their dedication, they are quietly burning out.
These patterns are often deeply ingrained, shaped by the survival strategies we developed in childhood. Understanding these dynamics is the first step toward breaking free from them. By recognizing how our past influences our present, we can begin to create new patterns that support our well-being and sustain our work.
Toward Healing and Authenticity
The journey to healing begins with self-awareness. As social workers, we must be willing to look inward, to examine the ways our childhood experiences shape our professional lives. This is not an easy task. As Bessel van der Kolk notes, “It takes enormous trust and courage to allow yourself to remember.” But it is also a necessary one.
In my interviews, I have seen the transformative power of this work. Social workers who take the time to explore their own histories and address their unresolved trauma often find a renewed sense of purpose and authenticity in their work. They are better able to set boundaries, care for themselves, and connect with their clients in meaningful ways.
Moving Forward
The legacy of childhood trauma is complex, but it is not immutable. As social workers, we have the opportunity to confront and heal our own wounds, breaking the cycles of trauma that have shaped us. This work is not just about sustaining ourselves in our profession; it is about modeling the healing and authenticity we hope to foster in our clients.
Through our own journeys, we can create a profession that is not only effective but also deeply humane—one that recognizes the interconnectedness of our personal and professional lives and honors the resilience and courage it takes to do this work.
Adam McCormick, MSSW, PhD, is a professor of social work at St. Edward’s University and Assistant Professor of Instruction at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. With more than two decades of experience, he has dedicated his career to exploring the intersections of trauma, resilience, and social work practice, including the ways childhood trauma impacts helping professionals. Dr. McCormick is author of the book LGBTQ Youth in Foster Care and the forthcoming book, The Unfinished Business of Childhood: Healing the Social Worker’s Childhood Trauma Wounds.