 |
||
| GET TO KNOW US About us Why consult us? Meet our directors Testimonials
CLINICAL SERVICES EMDR & TRAUMA STRESS Training courses Rent a room Press releases Contact us
|
What is Traumatic Stress? A Case Example A police officer with twelve months service was first to arrive at an incident where a man was lying on the ground in a pool of blood that flowed from an open head wound. She realised that the victim still had a pulse and administered first aid, however he died within a few minutes. The officer preserved the scene and maintained an incident log until she was relieved by a colleague on the next shift, an experienced constable with 18 years service. When her colleague arrived he found the scene taped-off and a Scenes of Crime tent erected above where the body had been. All that remained was a pool of congealed blood. By this time the victim’s brother had been arrested and charged with murder. The junior officer was back on duty the next day having thought about the incident several times. Within a few days she had attended a critical incident debrief and did not recognise any undue signs of discomfort regarding the incident. Her male colleague, on the other hand, reported sick for his next turn of duty, citing “flu” as the reason for his absence. He suffered nightmares and intrusive thoughts about the incident. His dreams related to incidents in the early 1980s where police and army had been killed and he was required to preserve the scene. The intrusive thoughts related to these too, and also to the pain and guilt the perpetrator must be feeling: the officer felt guilty about his own poor relationship with his brother and a time when he got angry and broke the brother’s arm in a struggle. An Analysis In the above fictitious account, the junior officer blocked off her emotions and got on with her job and life. The more experienced officer tried to do the same, it had always worked before, but try as he might he could not get an undisturbed night’s sleep and every waking moment seemed to be filled with disturbing thoughts. What had happened for the experienced officer was that the recent incident held such meaning for him it linked back to incidents in the past that he had never been able to resolve emotionally. He had usually had a binge on beer and vodka after incidents in the 1980s but this had never allowed him to process the emotional affect that he experienced. The junior constable had adopted much the same way of coping but had not had the cumulative exposure to critical incidents that the more senior constable had experienced. The critical incident debrief gave her the opportunity to recognise any distress. The more experienced officer was having a post-trauma stress response to events outside the normal human experience. This was characterised by persistent re-experiencing of the incidents. Clearly the re-experiencing phenomenon would be distressing for the officer, but his problem may not meet the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which is really just a diagnostic category for the presence of specific symptoms. How to Get Help Many people, as well as police officers and other emergency service workers, experience distress or emotional upset following exposure to an unpleasant incident. Sometimes this will resolve itself, but it can develop into a prolonged condition such as PTSD. For some people, however, distress related to a particular incident may only appear later in life, such as at retirement or other significant life milestone. If you find that you, or someone in your care, are distressed by recurrent thoughts and/or nightmares about past experiences, you can speak to us, in confidence, to find out what you should do. We have treated numerous cases of PTSD successfully and would be happy to receive your referral. A sufferer’s perspective - a poem by Andrew Little |