{"id":1345,"date":"2016-03-24T06:23:51","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T10:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=1345"},"modified":"2016-03-26T10:38:18","modified_gmt":"2016-03-26T14:38:18","slug":"police-psychology-30-dates-in-30-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=1345","title":{"rendered":"Police Psychology | 30 Dates in 30 Days"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Police Psychology | 30 Dates in 30 Days<\/h1>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is an area where few police psychologist have ever gone.\u00a0 In fact, only two that I know.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we started the book, Red Flags!\u00a0 How to Know When You\u2019re Dating a Loser<\/u><\/em><\/strong><\/a> we, Dan Goldfarb and I just wanted to give some advice to girls who were looking for a mate.\u00a0 We designed the book around letting our \"redfemale clients know when they are dating a loser by the third date.\u00a0 But it had to sell.\u00a0 So we came up with the idea that since we were police psychologists, we were teaching profiling of relationship criminals to women.\u00a0 When phrased that way, people got real interested as 22 of 25 agents on first mailing wanted to be the one to represent it.\u00a0 Usually you send it out to hundreds of agents and get tons of rejection letters before you find one that might take it.\u00a0 (Steven King even wallpapered a room in his house with rejections from his first book, Carrie<\/a><\/u><\/em><\/strong>, a huge best-seller and movie.\u00a0 Guess he got the last laugh.)<\/span><\/p>\n

So, now Dan and I had to write it and we needed some research beyond our patients.\u00a0 Well, I was breaking up at the time with a five-year on-and-off relationship and some of the cops came in and said I needed \u201c30 dates in 30 days.\u201d\u00a0 It was what I told cops to do in the same situation (sort of a Next<\/a> in cop language) modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous\u2019 \u201c30 meetings in 30 days.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 So I thought 30 dinners in 30 days, I could probably get away with this for $1500 or so.\u00a0 I could write it off as research, and meet thirty women, why not?<\/span><\/p>\n

Red Flag\u2026Yellow Flag:\u00a0 Carnivore Meets Vegetarian<\/h2>\n

So, how do your package a forty-two year old, plump shrink to be attractive enough so thirty women will want to date him in a month.\u00a0 Well, I write well, so I went on \"redone the dating sites at the time and wrote my heart out, and a number of women came running, well mildly walking at least.\u00a0 In those thirty days, I was speaking four times around the country at FBI field offices and I told them I was doing some research and would want a date with a single girl that night if they could find somebody.\u00a0\u00a0 Hint:\u00a0 never tell an FBI agent (particularly a female FBI agent) you need a date.\u00a0 I had volumes of pictures sent to me, full with descriptions and dating rap sheets.\u00a0 And then some of the girls in the earlier dates actually set me up with friends.\u00a0 I would talk to each on the phone about an hour before the date, tell them it was a one-time thing and I wouldn\u2019t be seeing any of them until after I dated the thirty.\u00a0 Oh, and I told them it was research for a book (guess you should know that because I don\u2019t want to sound like too much of a sleaze).<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, I had the time of my life and it seemed most of the girls did too, except one that I know.\u00a0 There was no pressure on the girls to be something they were not and no pressure on me.\u00a0 On most of the dates, we laughed so hard we were almost crying as they told me intimate loser stories about themselves and others.\u00a0 It was definitely too much of a good thing as toward the middle I started getting real tired.\u00a0 And I never really dated any of them again, but I became friends with a few.\u00a0 I went on 30 dates in 42 days.\u00a0 Close enough!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So what does this have to do with police psychology you may ask?\u00a0 At the end of each date I asked the girls did I show any red flags or yellow flags.\u00a0 A red flag means you wouldn\u2019t go out with me again, and a yellow flag means you\u2019d be real cautious.\u00a0 One girl said I had a red flag because I ate meat and she was a vegetarian.\u00a0 In fact, she was pissed the entire time because I ate meat in front of her (even though she never told me she was a veggie-girl).\u00a0 You get those kind of dates in life.\u00a0 She was going to be single a while!\u00a0\u00a0 Seven girls said I had a yellow flag.\u00a0 I was shocked so I asked why.\u00a0 Turns out all were physically abused in a previous relationship, and they said I was too nice.\u00a0 I did what I normally do.\u00a0 I am from the south and had a father who was a marine, so you learn at a young age to help a girl on with her coat, you open doors for them, you hand them their purse, help them in the car, etc.\u00a0 That made these girls flashback to their husband or boyfriends who were super nice, in-between bouts of being abusive.\u00a0 The \u201croses or the thorns\u201d is the modus operandi<\/em> of the abusive man.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Little Albert Revisited<\/h2>\n

I hearkened back to studies of fear when an infant boy played with a furry white rat<\/a> while a loud bell was clanging behind his head.\u00a0 It instilled a fear in him that he later generalized to a Santa Claus mask of all things.\u00a0 It was a first human experiment of conditioned fear response, classical conditioning and stimulus generalization.\u00a0 These women had a conditioned fear response to nice behavior from their abusive relationships and it made them so uneasy they generalized to a date years later for some of them.\u00a0\u00a0 They essentially were always going to be uncomfortable around anyone that treated them like a lady. \u00a0 I felt so bad for these poor girls.\u00a0 And that\u2019s made me think and there is\u00a0 always a raging metaphor coming when I start thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n

How many police officers that I see have a conditioned response to me, a psychologist trying to help them?\u00a0 For most, their first contact with a shrink is pre-employment, a nervous situation where they are interviewing for the job.\u00a0 Then, they come across the psychologist when they or one of the guys\/girls in their squad gets sent for a fitness-for-duty exam<\/a>.\u00a0 When they need help, they may be a little nervous going to a psychologist because they may have made the emotional differentiation from the title of psychologist, to the person who is now going to help them.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI am really nervous while I was sitting in your office, Doc, I almost left and went home instead of waiting in the waiting room.\u201d\u00a0 The fear of a psychologist gets to some of my patients on first meeting.\u00a0 <\/span> I wonder also how many officers don\u2019t recognize that the people they are helping on the streets or in their homes, may not have the differentiation from the title \u201cpoliceman,\u201d to the person in front of them who is going to help them.\u00a0 They see the police officer as a generator of nervousness?\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cPolice officers scare me,\u201d I often hear from non-police personnel who come in for help.\u00a0 The Police Psychologist and the Police Officer have a lot in common.<\/span><\/p>\n

Familiarity, Concern, First Impression<\/h2>\n

How do you overcome this feeling of nervousness? \u00a0For the psychologist it is rapport.\u00a0 Talk about something else, form the relationship off a football score or a talk about the job.\u00a0 Get to know the person and they get to know you a little.\u00a0 I have a huge sign over my door that says \u201cShrink Like a Champion Today\u201d hearkening back to the Notre Dame football theme \u201cPlay Like a Champion Today.\u201d (my Alma Mater).\u00a0 I would say 80 percent of men see the sign and recognize it almost immediately and relax.\u00a0 They know something about me from the sign and they relax.\u00a0\u00a0 For the psychologist, it is easier to breakdown the classical conditioning effect as long as you recognize it exists.\u00a0 But what about the officer.<\/span><\/p>\n

A police officer has to uphold his position in an interaction.\u00a0 When he puts that uniform on he has to represent his department and the profession.\u00a0 But, the first word out of his mouth can be kind in many situations.\u00a0 I had one officer, a highway cop, who said his first words out of his mouth on a traffic stop were always \u201cAre you alright?\u00a0 I got really worried about you that\u2019s why I pulled you over.\u201d \u00a0He said it disarms the person that he stopped and often he gets admission that they knew they were speeding.\u00a0 He said he has the highest rate of people taking the breathalyzer test of any of the cops on highway and he attributes that to a good first impression.\u00a0\u00a0 Another cop said when she goes to a domestic she says \u201cmy husband and I don\u2019t get along either sometimes.\u201d\u00a0 She says it calm people down almost immediately and then she can talk to them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A sign, a statement, a personal disclosure is not going to work for everyone or in every situation, but we have to know that there is a generalization to us because of the job we have.\u00a0 Some action to break generalization down will go a long way to helping us do our job better whether you are a shrink, or a cop, or a detective, or a boss.<\/span><\/p>\n

Know When to Fold \u2018Em<\/h3>\n

So, we finished our book and the editor wanted me to meet with her and a couple of people from her office, all twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings females.\u00a0 I thought we were talking marketing strategies but we went to lunch and I was asked questions like are \u201cblack leather pants on a second date the wrong message, what does it mean when he said he likes raw sushi, and he says he has a gay friend that means he is alright, right?\u201d\u00a0 I was a relationship shrink to them and they had questions about their lives.\u00a0 Hell, I didn\u2019t know any answers, I just wrote a book on profiling, but I gave free advice and answered a question with a question as a good shrink is expected to do.\u00a0 Sometimes in life you differentiate yourself, sometimes you just fit in with their generalizations.\u00a0 The secret is to know the timing of each situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blog Administrator: Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D. ABPP<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Please share this article from down below.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Please join the email list on the top of the sidebar and you can get these sent to your email.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Come back regularly for more updated blogs on police psychology<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police Psychology | 30 Dates in 30 Days \u00a0 This is an area where few police psychologist have ever gone.\u00a0 In fact, only two that I know. When we started the book, Red Flags!\u00a0 How to Know When You\u2019re Dating a Loser we, Dan Goldfarb and I just wanted to give some advice to girls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17168884],"tags":[17168897,17168797,17168831],"class_list":["post-1345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motives","tag-generalization","tag-police-psychology","tag-police-stress"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5092,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=5092","url_meta":{"origin":1345,"position":0},"title":"Police Psychology | The Obsessed Mind-Body Connection","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"January 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | The Obsessed Mind-Body Connection by Gary S. 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Aumiller, Ph.D.\u00a0 ABPP \u00a0","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Emotions"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Emotions","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17165629"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5013,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=5013","url_meta":{"origin":1345,"position":2},"title":"Police Psychology | A Real “Blue” Christmas","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"December 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | A Real \"Blue\" Christmas by Gary S. 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