Archive for the ‘Police Psychology Theories’ Category

Police Psychology: Moments after Parkland: A Personal Story

Posted: February 28, 2018 in Rank and Leadership
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Police Psychology:  Moments after Parkland:  A Personal Story

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D. ABPP

 

I went from police psychologist to victim last week.  I’d not been a victim for awhile, since someone stole my tires in my driveway way back in the 90’s.  This one was a little more active.

Some guy who used to be in my wife’s class at Queensborough Community College (she is a college professor) back 25 years ago decided a day after the Florida school shooting that he would find my wife on a Facebook page and start posting.  He posted on four days about ten posts each day.  Some rambling psychotic stuff at first, then a post saying that he was going to rape my 11-year old daughter in the ass and murder her.  Quite a disturbing thing to read as well as post.  He mentioned my daughter by name, so it was a very specific threat. (more…)

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Police Psych: Sex Crimes Cops Part 2: Nasty Recurrent Intrusive Images

Posted: February 19, 2018 in Police Stress
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Sex Crimes Cops Part 2:  Nasty Recurrent Intrusive Images

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

In Berkely, California there are researchers who are working on what happens to the brain in intrusive recurring images, in fact they are working hard on mapping what the brain does when it has the images.  They have gone as far as trying to replicate the images by stimulating those parts of the brain that light up when the image is shown.  They haven’t gotten quite that far yet as the stimulated images are mostly a blurry mess, but the basic shapes can be seen at times.

For the cop working crimes against children, and other sex crimes, the images are not blurry, in fact the recurrent images are like taking repeating concussive hits to brain.  It exhausts guys and girls in this work and makes like post-concussive syndrome affects on the brain.  They get punch-drunk with images that eat away their family life, their personal life, and of course, their ability to sleep.  Their world is a much more dangerous place for women and children.  And while they stay awake from the images, the lack of sleep doesn’t burn off the dopamine in their brains and it gets even harder to fight the involuntary slipping into images.  As psychologists, we work hard to try to suppress the nasty recurrent intrusive images, and we try to use a variety of techniques before the patient gets comatose with bad visions. (more…)

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Police Psychology: Historical Trauma and American Policing

Posted: January 30, 2018 in Police Stress
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Historical Trauma and American Policing

by Dr. Philip J. Swift

Historical or multigenerational trauma is the communal emotional and psychological injury of a group caused by traumatic experiences or abuses that transcends generations. When an individual or group is emotionally or psychologically injured by an event(s), the injury can be passed to non-traumatized individuals and across generations through unconscious cues, affective messages, storytelling, ceremonies or rituals, lessons, genetic damage, and exposure to symptoms of historical trauma.   Symptoms of historical trauma include anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, anger, guilt, substance abuse, loss of cultural and religious rituals, destruction of the family unit, and degrading economic/political/social capital. When these symptoms are addressed in a clinical setting, they are often treated without consideration for the complex and lengthy trauma history shared by the individual, their family, and their community. (more…)

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Police Psych: Sex Crimes Cop Part 1: It’s Not Just About Sex

Posted: January 25, 2018 in Police Stress
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Police Psych:  Sex Crimes Cops Part 1:  It’s Not Just About Sex

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

A soldier may have a few days in combat but they are interspersed with time back at their base.  The regular cop has what I like to call “burst stress” where they see a traumatizing situation, but in between are less stressful situations, or as Officer Friday put “Hour and hours of boredom surrounded by moments of sheer terror.”  There is a way to get away from the stress and the seeing awful things.  But, the cop working with sex crimes/offenses has a daily dose of images, one more awful than the next, each one more and more bizarre.  I read the story last week about a man who was released from a British jail who was talking to a fourteen-year old on the computer and telling her the sexual things he wanted to do to her before he ate her alive.  He had pictures on his computer of a child with an apple in her mouth sitting on a serving plate.  Sick!!  Or how about the detective who went to arrest an accused pedophile and while in the house found martini glasses with half eaten human feces in them and digital images/movies of pre-school children being subjected to anal rape.  Apparent the cocktail was used while watching the movies of children.  Life is a daily assault on these cop’s sensibilities, a diurnal attack of nausea from seeing a young life destroyed.  It is disgusting to even talk about these things, much less see them daily.  But we expect a portion of our police population to endure this attack so they can put the perpetrators in jail.  The problem is the criminals are not the only ones put in jail, as there are many types of mental jails. (more…)

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Police Psychology: Law Enforcement Longevity and Loss

Posted: January 3, 2018 in Public Information Bureau
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Police Psychology: Law Enforcement Longevity and Loss of Self

Michael Tavolacci, PhD

Peak Performance Biofeedback, Inc.

(The interpretation of statistics and the opinions expressed in this piece are the author’s own, not reflective of the website or the editor’s.)

Consider:

In 2011 65 police officers were shot and killed! (Violanti, 2012)

In 2011 147 police officers committed suicide! (Violanti, 2012)

Ironically, the sad reality is police officers commit suicide more frequently than the civilian population. Admittedly, there are a myriad of possible explanations for the statistics, access to firearms being among the most commonly cited factors. I would suggest there is an important change that takes place in an individual who, previously determined to be of sound mind, commits suicide, weapon access notwithstanding. Degradation of self-worth, loss of hope, and feelings of helplessness are commonly understood to be elements in suicide and must have been prompted by some new variable in the officer’s life. Once the decision has been reached the weapon is merely a tool to do the job as there are various ways to end one’s life.

The Cumulative Career Traumatic Stress (CCTS) detailed by Marshall speaks directly to the hopelessness that accompanies suicide. I envision the three concepts of the suicide dynamic as the legs of a stool. As Marshall suggests that the officer’s sense of hopelessness is derived from constant, never-ending, stress, I see the leg weakening, at risk of collapse. The leg that represents the helplessness of suicide emerges as officers come to feel they cannot free themselves from the urge to help mankind, in the face of insurmountable cynicism for the very same. The third and final leg of the stool, worthlessness, represents the diminished public support perceived by most officers as they are often vilified for their mistakes and seen as representative of an increasingly distrusted government. (more…)

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