Career Crisis and the Invisible Trauma That Nobody Believes is Real
- Jun 2
- 8 min read
Vicky Russ is a leadership coach and former CEO with 20+ years’ experience across the public, health and education sectors. She specialises in leadership, transformation and helping leaders navigate complex change and life transitions.
Redundancy, restructure, toxic leadership, forced career change, these experiences can shatter a person’s identity, confidence, and mental health. So why does society still treat them as inconveniences rather than what they actually are, trauma?
Imagine telling someone that you are struggling, that you cannot sleep, that you feel a deep sense of shame, a loss of identity, a fear of the future so paralysing that some days you cannot get out of bed. Now imagine the response: “But nobody died.”
This is the reality for hundreds of thousands of professionals in the United Kingdom who are living with the aftermath of career trauma, the psychological injury caused by redundancy, toxic workplaces, forced career transitions, or prolonged periods of professional uncertainty. It is a form of suffering that is widespread, well-documented in research, and almost entirely unacknowledged by the people around them.
We live in a culture that validates grief when someone dies, when a relationship ends, or when a health crisis strikes. But when someone loses their career, the role that gave them purpose, identity, structure, income, and social connection, the expectation is that they should dust themselves off and move on. Apply for another job. Stay positive. Be grateful for the redundancy payment. The grief is invisible, and that invisibility makes recovery immeasurably harder.
What is career trauma?
Career trauma is not a term most people have heard. But it is increasingly recognised in psychological research as a legitimate and significant source of human suffering. A landmark review published in the Academy of Management Annals synthesised over 1,500 studies across management, health sciences, and behavioural science to develop an integrated definition of work-related psychological trauma. The researchers found that despite being recognised in psychology and medicine for nearly four decades, trauma arising from work remains profoundly underexplored in organisational contexts and profoundly misunderstood.
The review defines work-related psychological trauma as a dynamic, individualised process triggered by exposure to workplace stressors that overwhelm a person’s capacity to cope. It is not simply stress. It is not a bad day at the office. It is an experience that fundamentally disrupts a person’s sense of safety, competence, and identity, and it can have lasting effects on mental and physical health.
The causes are varied: redundancy, bullying, harassment, toxic leadership, organisational betrayal, restructure, discrimination, and the chronic insecurity of precarious employment. What unites them is the depth of psychological injury they inflict and the extent to which that injury is minimised, dismissed, or simply not seen.
The grief that nobody validates
In 1989, the psychologist Kenneth Doka introduced a concept that helps explain why career trauma causes such profound isolation. He called it disenfranchised grief: grief experienced when a person incurs a loss that is not, or cannot be, openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned, or publicly mourned.
Career loss is one of the clearest examples of disenfranchised grief in modern life. When someone is made redundant, they lose far more than a salary. They lose their professional identity, daily structure, sense of competence, social network, and place in the world and status. Research published in the Journal of Loss and Trauma found that the grief process surrounding redundancy begins before the news is even confirmed and involves a prolonged sequence of psychological injury: something changed, loss commenced, loss confirmed, and afterwards.
Yet the social response is almost always practical rather than emotional. Friends ask whether you have updated your CV. Family members suggest you see it as an opportunity. Colleagues send encouraging messages about doors opening and the perfect opportunity being just around the corner. The underlying message, however well-intentioned, is clear: this is not something to grieve, it’s just a job, move on.
But the research tells a different story. A study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry in 2022 identified that job loss can trigger complicated grief, a condition characterised by negative cognitions, avoidance strategies, and an inability to integrate the loss into autobiographical memory. When people cannot make sense of what has happened, when the grief is unprocessed and unvalidated, it does not diminish; it deepens.
A crisis hiding in plain sight
The scale of career trauma in the United Kingdom is staggering, even if it is rarely named as such. The Health and Safety Executive reported that in 2024/25, 964,000 workers in Great Britain were suffering from work-related stress, depression, or anxiety, a 24 per cent increase on the previous year and the highest figure ever recorded. These conditions accounted for 22.1 million lost working days, with each affected person taking an average of 16.4 days off work.
The Centre for Mental Health’s Big Mental Health Report 2025 estimated the total cost of mental ill health to England at £300 billion a year, encompassing economic, human, and health care costs, and equivalent to double the entire NHS annual budget. Meanwhile, the redundancy crisis continues to deepen. Over 315,000 jobs were flagged for potential redundancy in 2025, with forecasts suggesting 327,000 or more in 2026.
Behind these numbers are people with feelings and lives to balance. The Priory Group reports that individuals made redundant are twice as likely to develop serious mental health conditions in the months following the event. The British Psychological Society has described redundancy as carrying a “double jeopardy”, the practical loss of income compounded by the psychological loss of status, identity, companionship, and self-worth. Yet, as Mind has highlighted, the vast majority of people experiencing mental health difficulties connected to work or career loss receive very little professional support.
Why friends and family get it wrong
One of the most painful dimensions of career trauma is loneliness. Not because people do not care, but because they do not understand. The cultural script around career setbacks is relentlessly optimistic: every ending is a new beginning; when one door closes, another opens; everything happens for a reason. These platitudes, offered with genuine kindness, can feel like a second injury to someone whose world has collapsed and whose confidence is dropping with every rejection or recruiter “ghosting.”
The truth is that most people have no framework for understanding career loss as trauma. We understand that losing a loved one requires time, compassion, and space. We understand that divorce is painful and complex. But a job ending? That is seen as a logistical problem, not an emotional one. The expectation is resilience, not grief. Activity, not reflection. The person suffering learns very quickly that their pain makes others uncomfortable, so they hide or suppress it, believing they are overreacting.
Doka’s research warns that when grief is disenfranchised, the griever is denied the social support essential for recovery. They internalise the message that their suffering is disproportionate, that they should cope better. The shame compounds the grief, and the grief, unprocessed and unsupported, begins to affect everything: relationships, confidence, physical health, and the capacity to imagine a meaningful future.
When career trauma lives in the body
Career trauma does not only affect the mind. Research increasingly shows that prolonged psychological distress from work-related events triggers genuine nervous system dysregulation. The body’s stress response, designed to protect from acute physical danger, becomes chronically activated. Sleep is disrupted. Concentration fragments. The immune system is suppressed. Some people develop symptoms that meet the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder.
A 2020 study in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology found that toxic leadership styles significantly increase PTSD and depression symptoms among employees. These effects persist long after leaving the workplace or role. Trauma is not located in the job, but in the person, in their nervous system, beliefs about themselves, and their relationship with work.
This is why simply finding another job, if possible, does not resolve career trauma. The psychological injury follows the person. It shows up as imposter syndrome in the new role, hypervigilance around organisational change, reluctance to invest emotionally in work again, and a chronic lack of confidence. The wound does not heal because the desk has changed.
From functioning to flourishing: What coaching makes possible
Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun introduced the concept of post-traumatic growth in the mid-1990s to describe positive psychological change emerging from highly challenging life events. They identified five domains of growth: increased appreciation for life, more meaningful relationships, greater personal strength, changed priorities, and a richer sense of purpose.
This is the territory that coaching occupies, not avoidance of pain, but transformation of it. Trauma-informed coaching honours the grief, names the trauma, and creates conditions for rebuilding a professional identity that is authentic, resilient, and deeply connected to the person’s true self.
Functioning is finding another job and getting through the day. Flourishing is designing a career that aligns with life purpose, values, goals, and strengths, making work a source of energy and meaning rather than anxiety and obligation.
Coaching begins with acknowledgement. Naming the experience as trauma, not failure, weakness, or overreaction, is profoundly healing. The work then focuses on rebuilding: reconnecting with strengths, clarifying values, and creating a future vision that is genuinely theirs.
This is not about positive thinking. It is deep, honest, evidence-based work addressing the whole person: confidence, identity, nervous system, relationships, and life purpose. It transforms crisis into catalyst.
The conversation we need to have
Career trauma is real, widespread, and backed by decades of research. The current wave of redundancies, restructures, and workplace toxicity across the UK means more people than ever experience this form of suffering, most in silence, because others do not recognise it.
We need to change the conversation. Stop treating career loss as a logistical problem and start recognising it as grief, identity crisis, and trauma. Offer the same compassion and support as for major life losses. Invest in professional support that does not just help people find the next job, but helps them find themselves again.
Financial support addresses practical loss. Coaching addresses the human one. In a crisis of this scale, the human cost can no longer be ignored.
If you are living with the aftermath of a career transition that felt like a loss, know this: what you are feeling is not weakness. It is a normal response to an abnormal situation, and with the right support, it can become the beginning of something extraordinary.
Read more from Victoria (Vicky) Russ
Victoria (Vicky) Russ, Managing Director and Leadership Coach
Vicky Russ is a leadership coach and former CEO with over 20 years’ experience across the public, health and education sectors. She specialises in leadership, transformation and helping leaders navigate complex change and life transitions. Her work focuses on supporting leaders to maintain performance while creating psychologically safe, high-performing cultures. Vicky is also a teacher of Positive Psychology Leadership and brings a practical, human approach to even the most challenging situations. She is passionate about “protecting the protectors” and helping leaders move from pressure to purpose.
References:
Doka, K.J. (1989). Disenfranchised Grief: Recognizing Hidden Sorrow. Lexington Books.
Doka, K.J. (2002). Disenfranchised Grief: New Directions, Challenges, and Strategies for Practice. Research Press.
Bedi, A. et al. (2024). Work-Related Psychological Trauma Research: A Multidisciplinary Review and Integrated Trauma Response and Adaptation Model. Academy of Management Annals, 18(2).
Cairns, D. and Malloch, M. (2009). Journeys Into Grief: Exploring Redundancy for a New Understanding of Workplace Grief. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 14(5), 401-419.
Van Eersel, K.A., Taris, T.W., and Boelen, P.A. (2022). Job loss-related complicated grief symptoms: A cognitive-behavioural framework. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, 933995.
Van Eersel, K.A., Taris, T.W., and Boelen, P.A. (2019). Development and initial validation of the Job Loss Grief Scale. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 33(2), 193-206.
Tedeschi, R.G. and Calhoun, L.G. (2004). Posttraumatic Growth: Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Evidence. Psychological Inquiry, 15(1), 1-18.
Powers, J.J. and Duys, D.K. (2020). Toward Trauma-Informed Career Counseling. The Career Development Quarterly, 68(2), 173-185.
Health and Safety Executive (2025). Work-related stress, anxiety and depression statistics in Great Britain 2024/25. hse.gov.uk
Centre for Mental Health (2025). The Big Mental Health Report 2025. centreformentalhealth.org.uk
British Psychological Society (2020). Double jeopardy: The surreptitious consequences of redundancy. The Psychologist. bps.org.uk
Priory Group (2024). Maintaining your mental health after being made redundant. priorygroup.com
Liquidation Centre (2026). UK Redundancy Statistics 2026. liquidationcentre.co.uk
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