Issues and controversies in the understanding and diagnosis of compassion fatigue, vicarious traumatization, and secondary traumatic stress disorder.

Understanding the effects of prolonged contact, in a professional role, with trauma victims has led to conceptualizations of helper stress. Various terms such as compassion fatigue, vicarious traumatization, secondary traumatic stress reactions, empathic strains, burn out, and Type land Type II countertransference have been proposed These terms required conceptual classification to make a proper diagnosis and classification of their impact on the helping process. It is proposed that Traumatoid States is a more inclusive and accurate term to define sub-types of occupationally-related stress response syndromes (OSRS).