Abstract
In this chapter we describe the factors in crisis intervention that make the work particularly difficult or stressful. We discuss debriefing methods previously developed by others to deal with the effects of crisis work and propose a debriefing strategy especially for psychologist, social workers, psychiatric nurses, and psychiatrists. (For simplification, the word psychologist will be used to refer to all of these professionals.) The ideas and procedures put forward have evolved through our work with victims of violence, specifically armed hold-ups. We argue that psychologists, as distinct from other emergency responders (e.g., ambulance workers and the police), require psychological understanding and integration to be able to function and intervene effectively. We identify and discuss the elements involved in a debriefing and detail the task of the debriefer.
Reprinted from the Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1993.
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Talbot, A., Manton, M., Dunn, P.J. (1995). Debriefing the Debriefers. In: Everly, G.S., Lating, J.M. (eds) Psychotraumatology. The Springer Series on Stress and Coping. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-1034-9_17
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