Taoist thinking style and social workers’ vicarious trauma: The mediating roles of individual adaptabilities

Abstract

Guided by an ancient Chinese philosophy, Taoism, we investigate whether Taoist thinking style, including naturalness, non-striving, and acceptance, has the potential to lower vicarious trauma among social workers and the mediating role of individual adaptabilities. In a survey of 547 Chinese social workers, regression and path modeling showed that Taoist thinking was associated with less vicarious trauma, and that this association was largely accounted for by crisis-, work-stress-, and interpersonal-oriented adaptabilities. Accordingly, supervision and capacity-building may integrate Taoist-informed perspectives, cultivating acceptance, flexible crisis response, stress management, and collaborative practice, to bolster social workers’ well-being.