Refinement and Preliminary Testing of an Imagery-Based Program to Improve Coping and Performance and Prevent Trauma among Urban Police Officers

Abstract

Police officers are regularly exposed to traumatic critical incidents. The substantial mental, behavioral, and social costs of police trauma indicate a substantial need for prevention. We have refined and enhanced a previously tested Swedish program to the harsh conditions of U.S. inner cities. The program was designed to strengthen resilience during stressful encounters and teach methods of coping after exposure, thereby preventing the emergence of maladaptive symptoms and behaviors with adverse effects on professionalism. In an uncontrolled demonstration project, junior officers were trained by senior officers to engage in imaginal rehearsal of specific dangerous situations while incorporating optimal police tactics and healthy emotional reactions. A class of 32 officers in the police academy engaged in the program, and they and the trainers reported high satisfaction with it. After their first year of field work, 22 officers were reassessed. Compared to pre-training, these officers showed significant increases in the use of positive reframing and humor and significant reductions in anxiety and alcohol use over the year. Trauma symptoms did not increase. These results offer preliminary evidence for the feasibility and effectiveness of this trauma prevention program for new police officers.

Differential Effects of Physiological Arousal Following Acute Stress on Police Officer Performance in a Simulated Critical Incident

“…Much as tunnel vision may unduly restrict situational awareness, an over-reliance on proceduralized communication skills may interfere with the breadth of verbal engagement that is sometimes required in a critical incident. As an alternative, police officers could instead rehearse techniques to increase flexibility and awareness during stressful situations, thereby allowing for the cognitive freedom to engage in improved verbal performance (Arble et al., 2017).…”

Interventions for the prevention and management of occupational stress injury in first responders: a rapid overview of reviews

“…Resilience training (n = 4 studies) Two studies explored effective resilience programs in junior officers. Arble et al [31] examined a program designed to increase resilience and build coping mechanisms while reducing trauma. Each session in the quasi-experimental study used audio recordings and scripts to take new police officers through a sequence of imagined scenarios beginning with a relaxation scenario and building up to an enhanced trauma scenario.…”

Models of first responder coping: Police officers as a unique population

“…Among first responder groups, police officers have been the subject of numerous research, in part, because of their frequent exposure to many potentially traumatic, critical incidents in their everyday occupational responsibilities (Andersen et al, ). Examples of police critical incident exposures include motor vehicle chases and accidents, domestic violence, crowd control, physical assaults, handling dead bodies, and dealing with unpredictable, dangerous, and armed criminals (Arble, Lumley, Pole, Blessman, & Arnetz, ; Carlier, Lamberts, & Gersons, ; Toch, ; Van Hasselt et al, ).…”