Critical Incident Stress Management in Law Enforcement Officers

Table of Contents

Abstract2

Introduction3

Discussion4

Debriefing after a Critical incident:6

Introduction:8

Predictability and facts9

Thoughts and impressions:9

Emotional reactions:10

Normalization:10

Planning for the Future / coping.10

Conclusion12

References14

Abstract

Critical incident stress is a state when an individual has faced a traumatic experience in life and the impact of that experience causes a person to become severely affected, emotionally, physically and psychologically. The management of this type of stress is necessary since it can leave an everlasting effect on the mind of the individual. Critical incident stress management is necessary for law enforcement agencies, to conduct necessary procedures such as debriefing, to release the post traumatic stress of the officers working in such traumatic conditions.

Critical Incident Stress Management in Law Enforcement Officers

Introduction

A critical incident can be defined as “any event …..Of ordinary human experiences" (Mitchell &Everly, 1993).

The occurrence of a critical incident leads to the development of post traumatic stress.Posttraumatic stress disorder originates or observed after exposure to highly traumatic event (assault, rape, assault, kidnapping, accident, etc.), which is at stake the lives of people. The images of the distressing situation re experimenters again and again (flashback), against their will, despite the passage of time, imagining in exceptional detail, accompanied by acute anxiety reactions (worry, fear, pain, lack of control, high arousal, avoidance of situations related, etc.). This generates a strong stress, exhaustion, intense emotions and irrational thoughts that increase the intensity of that stress, exhaustion, and intense emotions.

The PTSD is characterized in that attaches great importance to these images and the anxiety they cause. They develop many thoughts about the traumatic event and its consequences. It also attaches considerable importance to these thoughts, which generate more anxiety, more stress, and more insecurity. Their perception of the world is regarded as highly dangerous. They usually lose their sense of control over their personal security. They remember many details of the situation or the feelings experienced in the moments of the event, with great vividness, with appreciable intensity and high frequency. These sensations visual, auditory, tactile remain deeply etched in memory and have a high relevance between any other memories.

The images and feelings can become intrusive (and again come to mind, causing discomfort), especially if they are to avoid them. When we want to avoid thinking that increases the frequency of unwanted thought and becomes more stressful after the trauma (assault, rape, assault, kidnapping, accident, etc.). Thought, the individual's internal dialogue, not just causes more anxiety, but tends to generate feelings of guilt, for what had been done, so was not because he was not in the circumstances, having been saved by a number of reasons unrealistic, quite irrational, and excessive self-imposed. It weaves a network and increasingly sophisticated in which these elements are related to change in the same direction: to cause more stress.

Under the initial acute stress that occurs after the trauma (in the first month) and low post traumatic stress (after the expiry of the first month), are also common feelings of helplessness and powerlessness, the reactions of anger, feelings of hostility, anger, and images of aggression against the agent that produced the ...