Bshs 345 - Personal Reflection Paper

Personal Reflection Paper

BSHS/345

Suzanne Reed

Professor: Dr. Tristram Jones

Introduction

         In this Personal Reflection, I will give a brief explanation of the meaning of invidious comparison and the information on how to stop it.  The strategies that I currently use to avoid vicarious traumatization in my personal life will be summarized, and the strategies that I use avoid these traumatizations in my career as a human services worker.  Lastly, I will be summarizing the strategies that I could develop to prevent instances of vicarious traumatization.  

Invidious Comparison

         An invidious comparison is a comparison tactic between one person and others where without trying anyone can make someone feel inferior about their inner self without knowledge (University of Phoenix, n.d.).  In life, there are differences among people, being smart, strong, short or tall are all examples of comparisons that people associate among themselves.  When someone has an issue with a weakness among themselves, they become very defensive of the weakness.  To be one that has less than another can cause problems and even depressive states.              Stopping invidious comparison is only possible by understanding the strengths that are there and understand that others are going to have different or more strength (University of Phoenix, n.d.).  There will always be someone that has more or less, or be better in some way shape or form, understanding how to overcome the comparisons is the only way to combat the issue.  

Strategies used currently to avoid vicarious traumatization in personal life

        The strategies that I currently use to avoid vicarious traumatization are creating a boundary that does not allow for any issues that can arise from invasive people.  The second tactic that I use to prevent the issues of vicarious traumatization is to realize the issues that I have learned from in the past and try whatever I need to do to prevent the same thing from happening in current time.  Preventing the issues that can come to attrition, and preventing from anyone trying to give more than the constructive criticism that I can handle helps to prevent these forms of traumatization.  

            I just went through this issue with a neighbor getting too much into my involved life in the wrong way.  My neighbor would just walk into my home unannounced, try to get me to work on her things that she didn’t want to do, and sought to control things, in my household, that was just ridiculous to try to control.  It came to the point where I had to tell her how I felt about the situation; she wasn’t pleased with me when I expressed my concern.  The whole situation led to her alienating herself from me.   The moral of the whole story is I needed to express my boundaries from the start with her to prevent this issue.