Evan M. Peterson Professional Services
DEBRIEFER: accessible and handheld friendly site
[Skip To Page Content]
[Home]
[Therapist]
[Trainer]
[Speaker]
[Substance Abuse Professional]
[Substance Abuse Professional Consulting]
Debriefer
[Life Without Cannabis]
[Mastering Traumatic Stress]
[Bio]
[Thoughts]
[Links ]
[Contact]
[Privacy Practices]
[Web Site Terms of Use]
[Big Browser Web Site]
More About Debriefing
Severe adverse reactions to trauma are actually quite rare. The vast majority of people exposed to trauma are able to cope with the experience and respond in healthy ways if they have a supportive environment. Their initial responses, though they may be painful, are not "crazy" or indicative of weakness.
Normal responses to trauma include anxiety and fear, sleeplessness and restlessness, lack of concentration or troubling thoughts, irritability and anger, a desire for isolation or dread of being alone, nightmares and poor sleep, increased frequency of accidents and mistakes, sadness, depression, guilt, and increased or unusual physical symptoms.
What is a Critical Incident?
A critical incident is direct exposure to a traumatic event during which the person experienced, witnessed or learned about an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or threats of harm to oneself or others. The incident must fall outside of the employee's ordinary life experience. For instance, many law enforcement officers work traffic accident scenes the rest of us might find gruesome and traumatic, but they are accustomed and rarely find the experience of those events traumatic. When an officer who has only fired his or her weapon on the firing range has to use deadly force for the first time, that experience typically is traumatic. No amount of training can fully prepare someone for the normal response to this act. The stress response that results from exposure to trauma is extraordinary because the experience itself is not ordinary.
Everyone has a response to trauma. Responses will vary in intensity, often by how close - physically or psychologically - that person was to the event. Someone who heard about a coworker being maimed by a machine on a factory floor would be physically more distant from that event than someone who observed the accident. Someone who was previously injured in an accident may be psychologically closer to the trauma - and possibly have a more intense reaction than someone who witnessed it.
Critical Incident Debriefing
A Critical Incident Debriefing is a structured group meeting of people exposed to trauma with the purpose of clarifying the incident, discussing and understanding responses, helping people feel less isolated and more grounded in reality, and educating them on how they can get help if they need it. A Debriefing may last from 45 minutes to 2 hours. Although it is recommended that people exposed to trauma attend, no one is required to stay if they want to leave and no one is required to speak if they wish to remain silent. The debriefer will gently ask people who appear to be in serious distress if they would like to leave, and will ask to meet with them separately. To maintain healthy professional boundaries, employees and supervisors are always debriefed separately. To promote comfort and participation, groups are typically no larger than 15 - 20 participants.
Grief Debriefing
It is always best to conduct a debriefing between 24 to 72 hours following a critical incident. Sometimes circumstances do not allow this. A Debriefing is usually no longer appropriate after 5 days because some people have now "moved on" and the intervention may be considered disruptive by them. If you want an intervention in the a week or more following a Critical Incident, Mr. Peterson will conduct a Grief Debriefing instead.
A Grief Debriefing follows a format similar to a Critical Incident Debriefing but it focuses on the grief of employees in response to circumstances that were either tragic but not traumatic (for example, everyone knows a coworker is struggling with cancer and eventually they die) or circumstances were traumatic but occurred over a week or more in the past. Grief Debriefing is not grief counseling. It's a structured group to help participants understand the grief process and how it will affect them as they grieve.
The content of this group is different because grief is universal: a painful but ordinary experience.
Debriefings conducted by Evan Peterson may be arranged through Dovetail, Inc., of Crystal Lake, Illinois, on a fee-for-service basis. Please call 815-861-8800 at your earliest opportunity to arrange for a debriefing.
Mr. Peterson will make arrangements to travel to your location to conduct the debriefing. More about Evan's day time job at Dovetail may be found their accessible site here or at the now handheld friendly and accessible http://www.askdove.com/hh/.