Confirmation of Candidature - Implementing a Trauma-informed Editing Framework: Practical Benefits to Editor Wellbeing and the Role of Self-care in Australian Editing Praxis

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2024) reports that an estimated 75 percent of Australians have experienced at least one traumatic event, with up to 68 percent of young people having experienced trauma before adulthood. Given this capacity for the human lifetime to include some degree or extent of traumatic experience, and recognising that writing itself is often a vehicle for processing and sharing trauma experience (Cripps 2022; Gidron et al. 1996; Gladding & Drake Wallace 2018; Glassa et al. 2019; Pennebaker & Seagal 1999; Stapleton et al. 2021), it is not unreasonable to expect referential implications in the editing and publishing industry. Despite this, the centrality of trauma and, by extension, the need for trauma-informed practice, remains relatively unexplored in the editing and publishing context, specifically in terms of how trauma-informed principles can be integrated and applied in the everyday publishing environment.

Alarmingly, my research[1] reveals that few Australian editors are able to articulate an understanding of the more pervasive traumas present in Australian society, with limited appreciation, for example, of collective, intergenerational, and historical traumas. This significant gap in knowledge risks further compounding the traumas experienced by authors and heightens the potential for unexpected secondary trauma experiences to have negative affect on editors. To remedy this gap in knowledge, this traditional PhD of 80,000 words builds on my Trauma-informed editing practice: A framework (Cripps 2022) - the first of its kind in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand - by examining the associations between trauma-informed editing practice and established theories of best-practice self-care and reading resilience to consider how these strategies might assist editors in avoiding the adverse consequences of secondary trauma exposure in the course of editing. In practice, this project will secure feedback on the Framework from a broad range of industry stakeholders and theoretical experts. The Framework will then be redesigned, and its efficacy tested through field-implementation among Australian editors. 

The Framework, which aims to improve the safety and wellbeing of editors engaging in the transactional relationship of editing, has conceivable gains across many facets of the publishing industry; however, addressing this lacuna of knowledge in an industry that is so heavily populated by freelance or self-employed individuals necessitates a cultural and philosophical shift. As such, this doctoral project will equip editors with simple and sustainable ways to ethically approach traumatic material while protecting their personal and professional wellbeing.

[1] My 2022 research - undertaken in fulfilment of the UniSQ Master of Editing and Publishing - surveyed practising Australian and New Zealand editors (n=48) on their understanding of, and exposure to, trauma, as well as their openness to implementing trauma-informed principles in their practice before scrutinising publicly available trauma-informed guidelines and frameworks from Australian healthcare and education sectors to guide the development of a trauma-informed practice framework for editors. See: Cripps, C 2022, Trauma-Informed Editing Practice: A Framework, Coursework Masters thesis, Masters of Editing and Publishing, University of Southern Queensland.

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