Psychosocial crisis intervention - part II
Major Erik de Soir continues his series on psychosocial crisis intervention with military and emergency services by examining typical responses to emotionally distressing, shocking and potentially traumatic events.
It is generally assumed that the consciousness of working with living, injured or dead victims of serious accidents, fire, natural disasters, violent crimes and hostage situations automatically leads to good psychological assimilation. This is absolutely untrue.
The author has led several field studies based upon semi-structured clinical interviews with military personnel, firefighters and paramedics, which have shown that one in ten firefighters or ambulance personnel have not come to grips with earlier traumatic experiences incurred during an intervention. The short and long-term effects of intense and sudden stress, as well as slowly accumulating stresses, can have a destructive effect on the rescuers’ and caregivers’ well-being.
The world of firefighters and emergency medical personnel is often a closed one to which an outsider is only admitted reluctantly. Nowadays, it is common knowledge that non-embedded psychologists, trying to work with rescuers, emergency personnel, law enforcement or the military, as specialists do with their patients, are rather seen as a 'spy' instead of 'psy'.
The full text appears in Volume 3 Issue 1 of the Crisis Response Journal.
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