Emergency response

healthblogger (51)in #health • 6 years ago

The situations of repeated aggressions, in the personal or professional field, are source of accumulated anxieties, generating multiple physical and psychological disturbances.

The context
In public and private enterprises, which are particularly vulnerable, the individual and relational consequences of repeated attacks begin to be analyzed in depth.

The effects of anxieties accumulated because of "silence", however, make more and more noise: absenteeism, disinvestment, communication disruptions, decline in the quality of benefits, discouragement, collective disempowerment, conflicts ...

These staff can now be supported by trained workers to help them through a period of emotional turbulence after the "shock".

The trauma or the shock
Assaulted people were confronted with an event that produced intense fear, fear, helplessness.

This shock is characterized by its brutality, its suddenness. The usual markers, the beliefs, the values that are the basis of trust, are shaken, at a stroke, nonexistent, without more foundation.

This trauma is perceived by the individual as a threat to his physical integrity or that of others.

The state of shock after 72 hours takes the form of acute stress with a number of reactions with physiological, emotional manifestations and disturbances of thought processes.

When acute stress lasts more than a month - if the subject is not treated appropriately or is particularly vulnerable - acute stress tends to become chronic and become a state of Post Traumatic Stress (PTSD) .

The State of Posttraumatic Stress is a major anxiety disorder : it is disabling and seriously compromises the physical and mental health of the personnel concerned.

Importance of listening
The "post-immediate" intervention will be followed during the 72 hours, ideally for up to a week, following the aggression, attention, availability and listening.

The first interview or interviews are impregnated with often inhibitory emotions (which block the action and the expression): anger, shame, guilt, indecision ...
The listening professional will then be there to bring:

a warm proximity that comforts and prevents any reviviscences of feelings of abandonment.
an understanding that promotes communication, confidence and the integration of what has been forgotten, that could have remained stifled, detached from consciousness;
the conditions so that the anger is not repressed, factor of depression, anxiety or irritability;
a welcoming and safe space where one can speak without fear, without fear of judgment, misunderstanding, rejection;

This "psychological" listening will allow the person to reposition themselves, their family, society and professional community. It can "resituate the traumatic event in the whole of its psychic economy".

Psychological counseling following trauma is not a casual discussion. The blocked affects can emerge so that the subject can "see them face" without too much apprehension or anxiety and this to the rhythm of each, according to his personality more or less introverted or extroverted.

The first contacts will aim to

meet primary needs, in tune with other internal and external stakeholders;
to give warmth, a reassuring contact, a comfortering solidarity, a presence that tightens the social bond, which restores the feeling of humanity that allows the traumatic event to be put into perspective later on.
to offer the best conditions of physical and psychological relaxation by a quiet presence; this presence, at the moment of a tragic loneliness, is protective and all the more necessary as the subject has the brutal revelation of his fragility and impotence.