Posts Tagged ‘police psychology’

Police Psychology | Get Thee to a Conference

Posted: June 17, 2016 in Motives and Opportunity
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Police Psychology | Get Thee to a Conference

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

My first experience with a professional conference came when I was 35 years old.  My partner and I had started a newsletter for mental health of police officers in the late 80’s.  In an attempt to getConference it out to the public, we had contacted Clint Van Sandt of the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit.  We went down to see him and we were ushered over to Dr. James Reese.  He was running a program inviting the top police psychologists to stay at the FBI Academy and he invited me to join. It opened up my world to about fifty police psychologists.  Fifty people doing what I did, but also something different.  That different was what I needed to know.  I remember I made a presentation that day about Keeping It Simple as a law enforcement officer.   I quoted some great persons in history like Aristotle, Einstein and Dante who all told you to simplify.  Then I said “we have to go with the modern greats” and I went around the room and quoted the psychologists who spoke before me.  Got everyone’s attention on that one, and it started my work with the FBI and many other departments since. (more…)

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Police Psychology | Mass Casualities

Posted: June 15, 2016 in Rank and Leadership
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Police Psychology | Mass Casualties

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

In light of the Orlando night club shooting this week, I wanted to give you some information on the effects this kind of tragedy can have on first responders and what can be done as a police police lineleader or psychologist to help the situation.  Unfortunately, I have worked on too many mass casualty situations, from TWA Flight 800, to the embassy bombings in Africa, to both World Trade Center bombings and quite a few in-between.  Being in the New York area I still have cops processing their work at 9/11 and Flight 800.

First off let me explain the concept of “burst stress.”  Burst stress is the norm for police officers and first responders.  Sgt. Friday of Dragnet said it best when he described police work as hours and hours of boredom surrounded by moments of sheer terror.  Burst stress is that sheer terror.  It is the amusement park rides that jerks you into the air and tosses you upside down to be caught just before you descend to your death (or puke in my case).  In the amusement park it is fun for many (I actually hate those rides) as you know that you will probably not die or else the amusement park would have closed years ago.  It is also over in a few seconds, then you go on.  Not quite that way when it happens in real life.  A first responder is in that situation, then he or she goes home and tries to get some sleep, wakes up the next morning and returns again to the same  situation sometimes for weeks.  It’s not just feeling the jeopardy, but also seeing the death that makes them confront their mortality.  When you handle mutilated bodies you picture yourself, your children and many others in that position and it is not pleasant.  It haunts you. (more…)

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Police Psychology | Managing Differences in a Healthy Marriage

Posted: June 9, 2016 in Mastering Emotions
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Police Psychology | Managing Differences in a Healthy Marriage

by Doug Gentz, Ph.D. – Tulsa, Oklahoma

 

All marriages start, and in some cases, end in court houses. This is because the state officially recognizes marriage as a legal business partnership. The partners in a marriage, just like in any other formal business partnership, share liabilities, assets, and authority in decision making. Partners need to get along with each other in the process of managing day to day operating challenges and in accomplishing their long term goals.

hands shaking

Even if you could marry your clone, you would still have differences. All partners in a marriage have differences which often create conflict. Sometimes couples can eliminate a difference if one person agrees to make a change that resolves the disparity; although the longer you’re together, the less frequently this will probably happen. For the most part you will have a lot more success in changing yourself than changing your partner. The sooner you accept that, the better. (more…)

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Police Psychology | An Unsung Hero

Posted: June 7, 2016 in Stories
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Police Psychology | An Unsung Hero

by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.  ABPP

 

This weekend I was working on a cement block retaining wall, the ones that look like rocks but are really just carved cement.  I needed to do about 50 feet of wall but I figured being 60 next month and having gotten over open heart surgery, and being fat and in the wrong shape (round instead of square), I would do ten feet at a time, about two hours of work, I figured.  First I had to rip out big eight-foot landscape ties, then dig a trench about 7-8 inches deep, fill it full of bluestone pebbles rocks to 4 inches left, put in the block, level them and WALLA, I’m done.   Simple.  Eight and a half hours later, with two trips to Home Depot I was exhausted and couldn’t even carry the last blocks to the wall.  I needed a chainsaw for the landscape ties.  I had to make two cuts on each one so I could carry them.  I had to sharpen the blade after every cut.  I need four times as much rock as I had.  Digging was an adventure, who knew every rock in the free world came to rest in my front yard, and leveling the blocks in an unlevel yard —  I am not built for this kind of work!  And no one will notice the difference.  And I thought about my occasional friend Jim Dougherty when I was finished.

We lost a good one, a real hero, this Tuesday.  No not that way, Jim Dougherty retired.  Jim ran Marworth Treatment Center and came to my attention in the late 90’s when he asked me if I would help him establish a treatment center for police officers and first responders.  He came across my name when I was doing a tour of field offices for the FBI teaching Keeping It Simple and he wanted to know if I thought an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center could be maintained for law enforcement.  Jim said Marworth had a program for medical professionals, doctors and nurses that had taken off and he wanted to run one for law enforcement.  He had luck with the Pennsylvania police and wanted to expand.  We talked and I decided to go up to Marworth and see what Jim was trying to develop.  Quite honestly no one had maintained a program for law enforcement for any length of time, although many had tried. (more…)

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Police Psychology | Too Much Ugly

Posted: June 3, 2016 in Police Stress
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 Police Psychology | Too Much Ugly

By Robin Kroll, PsyD ABPP

 

When officer Frank arrived at the scene of the crash, he knew immediately there was a fatality. He found the teenage driver ejected, lying on the side of the road, dying. In his attempt to give aid, he heard the gurgling sound that was all too familiar, the sound of death. He detested that sound.  Officer Frank has a 16-year-old son of his own and immediately felt the parent’s pain.

He knew he had to pull it together so, without emotion, he mechanically and procedurally finished his tour and headed home. In his 17 years on the job, Frank had seen a lot of violence; a lot of death; a lot of “ugly.” He thought he would be used to it, but today he felt “off.” Today he thought of his own son. Today he felt intense pain. (more…)

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