Trauma in the Animal Care Field (Part 2)

Animal care workers are repeatedly exposed to physical and emotional injury through

the ordinary course of their work. While this is difficult enough on its own, these trying

experiences are made worse by the minimization of the gravity of the situations. What is

often labeled compassion fatigue could more accurately be described as trauma.

This presentation will offer some therapeutic tools for managing the impact of traumatic

experiences. A framework for simultaneously holding acceptance and change will be

introduced. Built on this framework, the talk will offer tools for acceptance of how things

are and tools for changing how things are.

Speaker: Jessica Fink, LCSW-S

Jessica is a native Texan who earned her bachelor’s and master’s

degrees from Texas State University-San Marcos in 2005 and 2007, respectively. She

married her college sweetheart in 2008 and the couple adopted their dog in 2009. The

couple enjoy traveling and trying new restaurants.

Jessica started her career at Ascension Seton Shoal Creek Hospital as an inpatient

social worker. Following that, she ran IOP groups at Seton for 10 years, including

specialized programs like Restore IOP for PTSD and Radically Open DBT IOP (RO

DBT.) She was promoted to a Lead Specialist position within the IOP department in

2016.

Jessica’s primary experience is with mood and anxiety disorders in adults. She also has

experience with substance abuse, veterans, and senior adults. Her areas of specialty

include PTSD, maladaptive overcontrol, insomnia, and chronic pain.

Jessica opened a private practice in 2021 and left Seton to do private practice full time

at the end of that year. Currently, she offers group and individual psychotherapy for

adults. Services include group and individual RO DBT for maladaptive overcontrol,

individual Cognitive Processing Therapy and EMDR for PTSD, group and individual

CBT for Insomnia, individual Pain Reprocessing Therapy, and, at times, a CBT for

ADHD group.