Emotional Survival Flashcards
1
Q
How do recruits usually feel on graduation day?
A
It is a time of high spirits, they feel a tangible sense of accomplishment for getting through the academy and believe in the promise that an exciting and fulfilling career is just beginning.
2
Q
Do recruits generally stay in touch with fellow students?
A
They can often flourish over years of shared service into lifelong friendships.
3
Q
Are all changes in a new recruit positive ones?
A
No, one of the first costs of the journey through a police career can be the old friendships that predate police work.
4
Q
What is a negative to new recruits relying on the support of more experienced officers?
A
Although experienced officers do know the job and the streets, often the rest of their lives do not run as effectively.
5
Q
Interesting Fact:
A
The message passed along to new recruits by veterans is often incomplete. It focuses on the job only.
6
Q
Do new recruits earn the respect of veteran officers easily?
A
No way.The trust of other cops is often an uphill battle. Being accepted and trusted is the major goal during the first few years.
7
Q
How do new officers become accepted by veterans?
A
It is earned only when the younger officers can demonstrate that they can be counted on in tough situations and they can be trusted when the chips are down.
8
Q
Social isolation
A
As the years pass, many officers experience social isolation from everyone except other cops.
9
Q
What are positive outlooks and emotions replaced by?
A
Dark, moody, negative views of the world
10
Q
What happens to their personal lives?
A
They often become strained, distant, and dysfunctional.
11
Q
Great quote:
A
Idealism can become cynicism, optimistic enthusiasm can become pessimism, and the easygoing young recruit can become the angry and negative veteran police officer.
12
Q
Quote
A
The job takes on more and more of the officer’s time and becomes more than just a job-it can become the central and defining aspect of the officer’s life.
13
Q
What happens to the significant people in the officer’s life?
A
They can find themselves pushed aside, searching for a way to adapt to these changes or risk losing the relationship. Marriages strain and break, children become alienated from parental emotional support, and
14
Q
Describe the relationship that can often occur between the officer and the people in his life.
A
The new officer can become emotionally distant, hardened, or physically absent from the lives of the people sharing the journey through the police career from the home front.
15
Q
Are the changes in the officer’s life often addressed?
A
No, they are rarely, if ever, spoken of in the police culture. Also they are rarely seen as a major priority to correct.
16
Q
How are recruits told to deal with these changes?
A
Recruits are told that the job takes its toll, but they are hardly ever told or shown how to minimize the negative effects of the journey through the police career.
17
Q
Quote
A
Helping officers keep their personal lives intact is not a priority for many law enforcement agencies. Typically, agencies give no strategies or preventative game plans to the recruit.
18
Q
Are these issues isolated to just a few officers?
A
These changes impact many new officers and families. Look around any law enforcement agency and see the wreckage, personal and professional.
19
Q
What changes occur first?
A
Emotional changes, such as
20
Q
How do veteran officers view their life when looking back on their career?
A
They look at the journey through the police career from a very different perspective.
21
Q
Quote
A
The officer’s journey, all too often, takes its toll-a toll in world-view-and outlook from positive to negative, from idealistic to cynical, from physically active and fit to sedentary and potentially unhealthy.
22
Q
What are some of the costs of the journey through a police career?
A
1Professionally, minor dissatisfaction with the organization or agency can become all-consuming anger, hostility, and open hatred toward the management hierarchy of the police agency. Personally,failed marriages, children in trouble, life views dominated by negativity, social isolation and alienation from fellow human beings.
23
Q
Quote
A
The veteran officer retiring after twenty or more years of service may not even vaguely resemble the positive, committed, and highly motivated recruit who began the journey.
24
Q
Quote
A
The scars, both physically and emotionally are all too often clearly visible.
25
Quote
Taking into account the adage "If it's predictable, it's preventable," why are the predictable emotional changes and difficulties in an officer's life not prevented? Why aren't law enforcement organization at least attempting major efforts to prevent the destructive effects on employees brought on by years spent as officers?
26
WHat about police psychologists and employee assistance programs?
They traditionally have been focused on resolving issues once they develop not on preventing them.
27
Quote
The law enforcement culture does, in fact, clearly value certain types of prevention and survival training. Any training that reduces and prevents injury and death to officers is highly valued.
28
What is the focus of this training?
It is on physical assault and injury.
29
What is the goal of law enforcement agencies?
Keeping cops alive on the street.
30
What is the most basic necessity for cops?
The development of professional skills in the area of officer safety.
31
Quote
No one would argue against the need for significant investment of training resources in the area of officer safety to maximize street survival skills.
32
Quote
The development of skills to survive the emotional aspects of a police career is given far less, if any, attention relative to the development of skills to survive the physical assaults of police work.
33
What should be the number one training priority?
Street survival and officer safety.
34
Quote
The development of officer safety training as a legitimate area of expertise over the past two decades has produced significant results and have saved many police officers' lives.
35
Quote
Although the number of officers policing the U.S. has grown significantly over the past 4 decades, the number of those officers dying feloniously continues to reduce. This is the result of good cops practicing effective officer safety.
36
Quote
In spite of being faced with increasing gang activity, readily available automatic weapons, and a court system imparting questionable consequences for criminal activity, police officers are surviving the streets.
37
What specifically has produced an increased the chance of survival for officers confronting lethal threat?
Making officer safety training a high priority.
38
How is the current safety training perceived?
Traditional forms of training are accepted and valued in the police culture. Officers take a personal sense of ownership and responsibility for the development of their officer safety skills while working in the street environment.
39
What is the number one priority for street officers
Stay alive so you can go home after shift.
40
Quote
Officer safety training does not need to be at the expense of training in the realities of the emotional effects of the career.
41
Statistic
An average of 69 law enforcement officers died feloniously in the US each year in the 1990's.
42
Statistic
According to the National Police Suicide Foundation police suicides averaged more than 300 per year during the 1990's, more than 4X the felony death rate.
43
Quote
The numerical difference between felony death and suicide should raise significant concern among both police officers and agencies, but the startling information often falls on deaf ears.
44
Quote
The loss of even one police officer's life to a felony is unacceptable in the police culture.
45
Reducing felony death
Training, equipment, and resources are dedicated to reducing felony death.
46
How does the suicide rate for police officers compare to the national average?
Police officer suicide rate is 3X the national average.
47
How has the suicide rate changed between 1950 and 1990?
The suicide rate among cops has doubled.
48
Quote
The reports of a higher suicide rate among police officers are even more alarming when you consider the fact that most agencies conduct pre-employment screenings.
49
Quote
Due to the fact that pre employment screenings are given great effort, it is safe to assume that officers begin their careers more stable, physically fit and with fewer ongoing significant emotional crises than the general population,
50
How do officers view the high suicide rate?
Many say, "That's big city cops. I work in a small town and that kind of stuff doesn't happen here."
51
Who are the FOP?
The Fraternal Order of Police represents law enforcement professionals from agencies of all sizes. Of 600,000 police officers in the US, 270,000 are represented by the F.O.P.
52
Statistic
Compared to the average U.S. suicide rate of 12 per 100,000 (as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the FOP found rates among officers of 22 per 100,000 officer members.
53
Statistics
F.O.P Death Rates are
54
Quote
Suicide isn't the only form of self-destruction. They include depression, social isolation adn chronic anger.
55
How do officers react to a co-workers suicide?
They rationalize it away with
56
After a suicide,
Many officers have to develop strategies to avoid acknowledging the real emotional impact the job can have.
57
Emotional distance
Officers design techniques to blunt and deny the realities. This means putting emotional distance between what happened and the world the officer still works and resides in each day. Officers tell themselves that the suicide must have been the result of some flaw in the individual psychological makeup of the dead officer.
58
Why is psychological distance essential?
For the officers to keep doing the job without any insight of strategy for emotional survival.
59
Quote
Denial creates the belief that psychological distance exists between what was going on in the dead officer's life and what is going on in the lives of the remaining officers.
60
Denial creates the illusion that...
I'm doing ok. That stuff doesn't apply to me.
61
Quote
It is a primitive attempt to ignore the emotional changes caused by police work and to deny emotional vulnerability. It is an attempt to avoid acknowledging the darker side of police work, the downside of the job.
62
Quote
What about the loss and deterioration of other aspects of the cop's lives. There is the destruction of functional intimate relationships,
63
Quote
The suicide rate of cops is not nearly as numerically significant as the number of marriages that are lost and the number of children who grow up emotionally distant from their police parents and who grow up experiencing the secondhand effects of a police career
64
What affects many police homes?
Cynicism, anger, isolation, and social distrust
65
Hilariously appropriate quote
When a police family is discussing the neighbors, who might have a different opinion on an issue, the idea of differences are not discussed, easier to conclude "the neighbors are assholes."
66
Concepts of social isolation and cynicism are
Not a problem; they are just "the way the world really is."
67
Do all new recruits have a difficult time adjusting to police work?
No, many officers do survive emotionally and remain functional even after many years.
68
Do agencies and unions often provide counseling services before incidents occur?
No, many services are available after problems surface, for agencies and unions rarely make the emotional well being of their officers a hight priority from a prevention perspective. This can become evident when a high profile event occurs in the community that throws the agency into a controversy.
69
What kinds of questions are asked by the media after a high profile event?
Are your officers psychologically screened before you give them guns?
70
How does the media both support and vilify the police?
The media, at first, seem to hold the agency's feet to the fire in the area of the psychological well being of its officers. Their questions seem to be a genuine effort to produce change, a desire to obtain assistance for the officers and also to produce and demand change, how the officers treat the public, how they treat minorities. However, usually the media reports from a fundamentally antipolice perspective in order to sell papers. This type of reporting causes the officers, as well as management to circle the wagons and take a defensive perspective.
71
How do officers end up feeling about the media?
The media really are a bunch of bleeding heart assholes. People in the community don't have any idea what working on the streets as a cop is really all about.
72
What often happens during a crisis that does nothing to help the officers?
Sometimes the crisis becomes a missed opportunity for labor and management to form a necessary partnership to enhance the help that could be available for officers and their families. Sometimes aggressive labor leaders consider the crisis situation a great opportunity to initiate a vote of no confidence against the chief. Then higher level management attempts to show the community that the chief is addressing the issue while also becoming defensive to the media.
73
Quote
When controversies concerning officer behavior erupt, they typically indicate that an officer or group of officers have failed to survive the job emotionally.
74
Quote
Even if genuine management action is taken concerning the controversial behavior of the officers, it usually represents a disciplinary reaction to the problem and fails to address correction and prevention. The agency deals with the symptoms without addressing the root causes of the problem.
75
What questions should be asked in the mutual interest of all parties?
Why did this happen?
76
What questions should be asked of officers to determine what changes an officer goes through?
Do you see the world differently now that you are an officer?
77
How do experienced officers respond to these questions?
Most experienced officers respond yes to all three questions.
78
Fast fact
Most officers realize they see the world differently but have never stopped to assess just how differently they perceive things. The people they spend the majority of their time with see the world pretty much the same way they do. These people, of course, are other cops.
79
How do officers feel about looking at the fact that they see the world differently than other people?
That would be a waste of my time, absolute nonsense, little more than touchy feel garbage.
80
Example of a changed world view
Think of the phrase "scout leader." Most people think an adult man or woman interested in helping youth. Most officers think pedophile, child molester or sex offender.
81
Why do officers think in a narrow way about people?
Their experiences encompass a very narrow slice of humanity. Their police work can become the officer's entire world view. As the years go by, because of the world the officers are immersed in, the data becomes more and more contaminated and so do the conclusions the officers draw.
82
Quote
Law enforcement personnel, like all other human beings, form their world views and predictions about life from the situations and events they see every day. Who calls the police to their home because things are going well? It has been said that officers see people at their baddest, maddest saddest. Is it any wonder that the officers' world views change?
83
Fun fact
Does being distrustful of human nature and motive have a purpose? Yes, it keeps cops alive. It is highly essential that every police officer practice excellent officer safety skills, which translates into being distrustful.
84
What happens when the distrust does not remain just a skill set on the job?
No one is trusted, except, obviously, a few select cops. Everybody has an angle. Don't be naive. He's not as nice as you think he it.
85
How do these negative feelings translate at home?
Activities and social gatherings can be extremely difficult on non police friends and members of the officer's family. The officer can be viewed as negative, distrusting, hard and unforgiving.
86
Are officers aware of their cynicism?
Officers often admit to being cynical, but often they are not aware of the long term impact cynicism creates on attempting to maintain a normal social, family and emotional life. There is a high cost to one's personal life.
87
Describe the cynicism ratio.
Basically you take the square root of the number of times you say bullshit on an average day. :)
88
What kinds of bullshit do officers often see?
They see political bullshit, administrative bullshit, affirmative action bullshit, management bullshit, union bullshit, touchy feely bullshit and total bullshit.
89
What does the bullshit list reveal?
It represents officers' anger, frustration, and growing intolerance of things that bombard them every day while doing their jobs as police officers. It's easier to shut down psychologically and distance yourself from the events around you. Officers can put up protective shields and not be affected. They don't have to think about things they disagree with. They just label them bullshit and move on.
90
Quote
Officers don't have to try to explain or deal with events outside their comfort zone. Creating this distance is a much less painful way of facing the emotional challenges of police work in the short run.
91
Who or what is the source of all the bullshit?
After much consideration, the officer determines that it is the assholes that are the source of all the bullshit. Now there is no longer any need to deal with the problems officers encounter every day. It's just bullshit anyway.
92
Who are the assholes?
Anyone they don't agree with is just an asshole. All alternative life forms are assholes. Anyone officers don't like, don't trust, are uncomfortable with, or don't even know is an asshole. The longer someone is a law enforcement officer, the larger the number of assholes he or she knows. By retirement, they can count on one hand the people who are not assholes.
93
Describe the categories of assholes
There are the known assholes, flaming assholes, management assholes, union assholes, federal assholes, local assholes and political assholes.
94
Fun fact
The term asshole really designates an individual who causes the officer to experience a state of physical uneasiness or discomfort. This state lets the officer know he or she is in potential jeopardy when this person, the asshole, is present. It could be physical risk, occupational risk or emotional risk.
95
When is this feeling of jeopardy experienced?
Early in a career, the feeling of jeopardy is experienced only in street encounters where physical risk occurs. This street survival mode permits the officer to be prepared in case something potentially threatening occurs. As the years pass, the officer becomes competent in his or her street survival skills and the feeling of jeopardy comes mostly from people within the agency. A common feeling is, "I can handle the assholes on the street. I just can't handle the assholes running this agency."
96
How does the cynicism show up at home?
Unfortunately, many law enforcement parents, without thinking let their cynicism and social isolation dictate the manner in which they admonish their kids. Quit acting like a little asshole. If you don't straighten up you are going to grow up to be an asshole.
97
Is cynicism unavoidable?
No. However, without effective training in emotional survival skills all through a career, a cynical outlook is a predictable result. Without taking time to make emotional survival a priority, many police officers lives will be typified by a lifetime of cynicism based thinking and decisions. The consequences of this type of thinking and interaction with children and loved ones are typically felt only years later in terms of failed love relationships and strained, or even broken parent child relationships that may never recover.
98
Hypervigilance
What causes the psychological changes in law enforcement personnel? Is the negative, cynical, angry outlook that typifies many law enforcement officers directly related to and caused by the many tragic, negative, and violent events that an officer is forced to witness over the years of being a cop? Officers must learn to see the world differently than most folks in order to increase the odds of going home each day after work.
99
How does an officer reduce lethal threat?
Officers reduce lethal threat by practicing this perceptual skill set known as officer safety.
100
Fast fact
Central to the development of any officer safety skills is the understanding that officers not only must perceive the environment as potentially lethal, but also must accomplish this perceptual task immediately, when time is if the utmost essence. Interpreting each unknown as potentially lethal permits the officer to have a greater sense of preparedness, regardless of how the unknown event actually plays out in the end.
101
food for thought
Not accepting the potential risk in any situation is not practicing good officer safety. Not being perceptive of every nuance of the environment can prove lethal. It is better to approach a harmless situation prepared for risk that to approach the lethal situation unprepared.
102
Define hypervigilance
The perceptual set of elevated alertness of the surroundings which is required of law enforcement officers for survival, often referred to as officer safety. A more accurate term is hypervigilance. it is the necessary manner of viewing the world from a threat based perspective, having the mindset to see the events unfolding as potentially hazardous.
103
What does an officer have to do during a routine traffic stop that reflects hypervigilance?
Who is in the backseat? Where are everyone's hands? Where do I stand? Where do I move if this traffic stop goes bad and I have to defend myself?
104
Is there a biological dimension to hypervigilance?
Yes, the brain of the competent street police officer perceives the world from a perspective of hypervigilance. Rapid perception, quick interpretation of events, perceiving unknowns as potentially lethal until proven otherwise- these are the mindset.
105
How does this perceptual set of hypervigilance affect the officer psychologically over a significant course of time?
Each action of the officer demonstrates the impact of hypervigilance on behavior. Every move is controlled by the perceptual set of hypervigilance; positioning and movements, how close he permits the citizen to stand, requesting and then requiring the citizen to step away from the vehicle or to step away from a weapon of item of threat. Soon, this becomes the officer's way of viewing the world. One could say that good officers learn to see the world as one big felony in progress. They are just driving through it and they don't want any of it to splash on them.
106
Does the average citizen need to develop hypervigilance?
No, the average citizen encounters an average level of daily risk. Most people have the luxury of living between the lines, living within the normal range of emotion, risk and reactivity to the environment. Living in the normal range of vigilance is a perfectly acceptable range for the average person dealing with a normal level of risk, threat, or demand.
107
How does the average citizen react to the world around them?
Average citizens live in the normal range of risk without consequence. They can see the world as a basically safe and positive place. They don't need to experience hypervigilance on d daily basis. Average citizens might experience it rarely. In a dark alley, for example.
108
What questions might an average citizen ask themselves when encountering a dangerous situation?
Am I in harms way?
109
Fact
The average citizen in the course of his or her daily routine rarely experiences hypervigilance. When a situation develops where there is risk, they may interpret the sensations as alertness, anxiety or fear.
110
The biology of hypervigilance
Hypervigilance is a biological state. Its foundation is in the neurological functioning of the brain. In the brain, the Reticular Activating System (R.A.S) determines the level of alertness that is necessary at any given time.
111
What does the Reticular Activating System do when a risk is experienced by a person?
The R.A.S. engages the higher functioning levels of the brain into a higher level of awareness and perceptiveness of the environment. This response is meant to increase survival by enabling the brain to perceive potential threats before they take place. This increased level of alertness and awareness needed for officers to safely work the streets is caused by the hypervigilance response and produces an increased functioning of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system.
112
What is the Autonomic Nervous System?
It controls the body's internal organs and automatic functions, such as pulse, respiration, body temperature, and blood pressure and other functions. The level and pattern of responsiveness of the autonomic nervous system is how an individual reacts to risk, demand, or threat.
113
Fact
The autonomic nervous system is the biological aspect of the officer's sixth sense on the street, that capacity to be ready when something takes place of needs an immediate reaction.
114
What are the two branches of the autonomic nervous system?
They are the SYMPATHETIC and PARASYMPATHETIC branches.
115
What is the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system?
The sympathetic branch is the part of the autonomic nervous system that reacts and controls bodily function in times of challenge or threat. It is the branch that is involved during the officer's day to day functioning. During hypervigilance, it turns on those bodily functions that are required for physical survival.
116
What are the heightened functions that are the body's way of increasing survival during hypervigilance?
They are increased peripheral vision, improved hearing, faster reaction times, increased blood sugar, elevated heart rate, increased blood pressure, and a general sense of energy to meet and overcome any threats that are challenging the body's capacity to survive.
117
Inattentiveness is ___________ for on duty police officers.
Lethal
118
How soon do officers begin to experience hypervigilance?
Early in a law enforcement career, as officers are being introduced to on duty police work, they make a conscious decision about their need for hypervigilance and its increased alertness concerning their surroundings. New officers express these feelings with ideas such as, "I better pay attention out here. I could get killed, I could get hurt, I could get somebody else hurt."
119
Fact
The state of alert interaction with the environment, at mild to moderate levels, is not unpleasant to experience physically. The on duty officer experiences a state of increased alertness, elevated sense of attention, more rapid thinking, and increased capacity to make quick decisions and think on one's feet.
120
Fact
While in a state of hypervigilance, officers also display good senses of humor-good but sick.
121
Fact
With this elevated level of nervous system arousal of the sympathetic branch, people feel alive, quick witted, and able to handle any problems. The feel a camaraderie with those men and women who share the risk involved in police work.
122
Fact
One of the reasons police relationships are quite intense and the culture close knit is that the men and women of law enforcement know the feeling of hypervigilance and it becomes the binding glue of the police culture. cops know what it feels like to be a cop. Just about everybody else is on the outside looking in.
123
Fact
People outside of police work observing hypervigilance many times cannot understand why the officers acted the way they did during any given encounter. The citizen unaware of the concept of hypervigilance and the survival behaviors it will produce in the law enforcement officer can draw a totally inaccurate conclusion when viewing the officer's behavior. How often during encounters with the police do citizens view the officer as rude, judging by behavior such as standing slightly behind the driver's side door during a traffic stop?
124
Officer behavior during a traffic stop
From the perspective of the officer, he or she is dealing with an unknown from a perspective of hypervigilance. The officer is watching every move the citizen makes. Hypervigilance becomes the filter through which the law enforcement officer experiences the world. All on duty encounters require hypervigilance.
125
Fact
The hypervigilance perceptual set is engaged not only while the officer is actually involved in an in progress law enforcement encounter but whenever the officer is observing the world.
126
Why do citizens often misunderstand hypervigilance?
Why did it take four cops to talk to the driver? He wasn't doing anything wrong. The citizen cannot appreciate that the officers did not know that the driver wasn't going to do anything wrong. For the officer, the entire situation and the people involved were unknowns. Hypervigilance saves lives.
127
Fact
Many veteran officers who leave police work return to the job with the following explanation. Cop work gets into your blood.
128
What other careers create hypervigilance on the job?
Very few careers create hypervigilance in the work force. Very few careers have workers who begin their careers with such enthusiasm. New officers say this for the first few years, anyway. They just can't get enough of doing the job.
129
Do reserve officers experience hypervigilance as well?
Yes, they volunteer and what do they get for their contribution of time, energy and commitment? The reserve officer might say, "To help my community or to make a difference." The real answer if probably the feeling of hypervigilance. "I get that alive, high energy feeling."
130
On the flip side of hypervigilance,
what other career field also offers the depression, exhaustion and desire for social isolation that can typify a law enforcement officer''s life at the end of the day. Hypervigilance is a biologically based action and every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
131
What is the PARASYMPATHETIC branch of the autonomic nervous system?
When an officer goes off duty the sympathetic branch which controls on duty reactions necessary for survival, gives way to the parasympathetic branch which controls off duty reactions. The alert, alive, engaged, quick thinking individual changes into a detached, withdrawn, tired and apathetic individual in his or her personal life.
132
What is BIOLOGICAL HOMEOSTASIS?
The biological balancing phenomena, which turns the person who has been experiencing the hypervigilance reaction on duty into the person experiencing the direct opposite reaction off duty.
133
quote
The officer who experiences energy, stimulation, and social interaction and involvement while on duty can turn into the off duty couch potato. The officer who socially engages other individuals and practices alert and alive officers skills while on duty can have trouble responding to a normal conversation at home.
134
How do the officer's friends describe the officers at home behavior change.
He is different now that he is a cop. He never talks anymore. He comes home, sits in front of the tv and tunes out the world. He won't answer the telephone.
135
Quote
One world for the officer is typified by alertness, involvement, aliveness and social engagement. The other world at home is typified by exhaustion, isolation, apathy and anger.
136
Summarize the on duty officer.
Heat seeker, sympathetic branch, alert, alive, quick thinking, good sense of humor, camaraderie.
137
Summarize the off duty officer.
Couch potato, parasympathetic branch, tired, isolated, detached, apathetic, angry
138
quote
Because every action has an equal and opposite reaction, the high demand for more elevated alertness that is required for on duty police work will produce an extreme reaction in the opposite direction when off duty.
139
What is the effect of the biological roller coaster of hypervigilance?
It can take over the day to day lives of police officers and their families and destroy the fabric of their lives. Officers must picture the roller coaster to understand the dynamics taking place at work and at home and to learn strategies to break the destructive effect the roller coaster can produce on police officers and their families.
140
What happens when officers are unaware of the roller coaster?
An officer's life can become controlled by the pendulum effect between work and home. The downside of the roller coaster can, without the officer's awareness of its destructive effects, become how they react to non police related activities and relationships. The upside has a physically pleasant feeling, but the opposite is true of the downside.
141
Fact
This two phase effect of hypervigilance on the life of a law enforcement officer can create challenges to maintaining a balanced personal life. If the challenges are not met or the Hypervigilange Biological Rollercoaster is not understood, relationships fail, inappropriate behavior increases and lives can be irreparably broken.
142
Fact
Officers feel more "normal" at work, more "alive" at work. When they come home, they feel like zombies who don't talk and don't want to do anything. Unfortunately, most of the time, families don't know why.
143
Describe the cycle of the Biological Rollercoaster.
Because the Hypervigilange Biological Rollercoaster is a biological cycle, it will actually self correct if left alone. After 18-24 hours, the effects of hypervigilance will be alleviated and the person will return to a normal phase of social interaction. The problem arises because by the time it has worn off, the officer is going back to work and it starts all over again. What then happens is that their lifestyle becomes based on the swings between the extremes of perceptual alertness caused by the necessity to be hyper vigilant on the streets and the opposite reaction of extreme detachment and inactivity at home. The swing becomes the everyday life of the police officer and the officer's family.
144
Compare police work to other fields in terms of the exhaustion people feel.
In many occupational fields, the workforce returns home exhausted and disengaged from friends and family. These other occupations see the worker exhausted from physically demanding labor. the officer is tired too, but from the effects of heightened awareness, the effects of hypervigilance. The officer is physically tired since the hypervigilance cycle is biological, not psychological.
145
The Magic Chair
As soon as officers sit in them, after returning home from work, by "magic" all their blood instantly turns to lead. They can't talk or answer questions. Most frequently, the magic chair is operated in conjunction with an electronic device for enhanced effect.
146
Quote
All the biological attributes that typified the on-duty, upper reaches of the rollercoaster, such as peripheral vision, acute hearing, rapid thinking , and decision making are all unnecessary now that survival is no longer at risk, the reverse effects take place.
147
Facts about The Magic Chair
Tunnel vision takes over. The channel changing show that the officer is simply checking out, detaching surrounding environment. It is the direct opposite response from that of the on duty phase. The officer uses the magic chair to recover while in the bottom half of the roller coaster.
148
Does the magic chair pose any physical threats to a person?
It does not cause any known injury to vital organs or functions. It could be considered a mojor problem if the officer residdes with another life form such as a spouse. The other life form may want to talk sometimes. If the spouse tries to talk, it soon becomes very clear that the person is transmitting, but the officer is not receiving.
149
Quote
The officer has mastered the capacity to tune out. He has mastered th eart of the "nonsense transmission." This is a verbal nonresponse to the person trying to engage the officer in a person sonversation. It has no inherent content value as a message. It is designed solely to keep the person from bothering the officer. Some examples are "Sure, we will talk about it later. " "Yeah, maybe." It gives the appearance of social interaction without being overtly offensive to the party wishing to interact.
150
What are the different modes for the magic chair?
Watching television, on the computer, reading the newspaper, taking a nap, and I'm just thinking about something.
151
What's so bad about the magic chair?
It can first appear to be a benign form of recovery after a hard day, but it can start a process of deterioration in the quality of relationships. The relationship stops having the level of emotional energy invested that is required to maintain a dynamic growing relationship. The family has fewer conversations.
152
Compare the roller coaster to other mental health problems
At first, the lower phase of the hypervigilance cycle can look like depression. Many aspects are similar, but it is not true clinical depression. True depression does not involve the rapid thinking processes, social engagement, quick wit and independent decision making required while the officer is on duty.
153
Fact
If the officer doesn't realize that he is experiencing the roller coaster of hypervigilance, he may mistakenly conclude that the people and events in their personal lives are the ones causing the change in feelings they are experiencing. They have not been informed that the emotional changes they are experiencing are part of a predictable biological process inside them and is not being caused by the people in their lives.
154
Don't go home
Don't go home can become an unconscious way of breaking the cycle. This comes from a conscious awareness that while on duty, the world is alive, stimulating and invigorating, while at home, it is subdued, depressing and isolating.
155
What do officers do besides go home?
They stay at work, do lots of overtime, stop for drinks with friends
156
What do supervisors need to do?
Managers need to be aware of this cycle and realize that working extra time isn't always the officer's committment to their career, but can have destructive long term consequences both personally and professionally.
157
Quote
Staying away from home is an attempt to ward off the emotional drop that hits when the officer moves from on duty to off duty.
158
What about off duty employment in another job?
This can have a two fold effect. It assists the family's financial needs, but also lets the officer remain in the more alive mode. They do not have to develop other, more constructive strategies or skills for breaking the roller coaster effect.
159
Describe how officers disengage.
1. The simple answer, such as nothing, kicking back, relaxing, vegging out, when asked a question.
160
How does this disengagement effect their life?
The personal life can become associated solely with the lower phase of the cycle. Everything to do with work is associated with the upper phase. The lower phase, or off duty life becomes of secondary importance. So do the people.
161
What are the symptoms of the hypervigilance rollercoaster?
There are seven first warning signs or symptoms that an officer is falling victim to the rollercoaster.
162
The desire for social isolation at home
Officers find themselves noncommunicative, withdrawn and apathetic concerning family activities. Officers assume their partner will raise the kids and take care of home stuff.
163
Unwillingness to engage in conversation or activities that are not police related.
Look at any police function. The guys are telling war stories to get them back to the top of the roller coaster. This is ADRENAL MASTURBATION. It has exciting short term physical consequences but is nonproductive.
164
Reduced interaction with nonpolice friends and acquainces.
Officers rationalize their closed social network of primarily socializing with other officers by saying that they get tired of other people. Only the feeling of being on the upper level of the hypervigilance rollercoaster, either at work or while socializing validates a feeling of aliveness of self worth. Everything else is boring.
165
Procrastination in decision making not related to work
Officers can begin withdrawing from decision making and any self initiated off duty activities. Thus, he is often described as "the fourth son." Officers can make clear and appropriate decisions while at work but are useless at home. This can leave the spouse feeling abandoned and with a feeling of being overwhelmed by the responsibility of running the household by herself.
166
Infidelity
This is one of the most painful aspects of the hypervigilance rollercoaster. Anything associated with home or the lower phase of the roller coaster is boring and anything associated with the upper phase of the cycle. People who meet during th upper phase seem prettier, funner, etc. Infidelity begins with the surging emotions shared at the upper phase. These relationships are superficial and are based only on time shared in the upper phase. The officer may have formed the wrong conclusion that their sense of unhappiness was due to problems at home, not because of the roller coaster.
167
Quote
The new relationship has elements that resemble an adolescent's running away from home. Officers leaving previously existing relationship feel extreme guilt along with a tremendous sense of freedom.
168
Noninvolvement in children's needs and activities
Often, children interact with the officer parent only in the lower reaches of the rollercoaster
169
The "I usta" syndrom- loss of interest in hobbies or recreational activities
The "I usta" response is given by many law enforcement officers to describe any inquiry into their personal lives. It describes what they "used to do" before becoming a police officer. It is basically a statement that all those activities that existed before becoming an officer have been put on teh back burner. These are activities that get lost because they occur at the bottom half of the rollercoaster. It is often a description of the things that have been lost from the officer's life, the part where all other nonwork aspects of life are experienced, such as family, hobbies and interests.
170
The military vs. law enforcement
The military also prepares people for total immersion into a culture of potential risk. The military knows that it is a relatively short term role if deployed. Unlike the military, most law enforcement officers see their choice of career as long term.
171
Quote
The training priorities and orientation of many law enforcement agencies produce enthusiastic rookies and later, bitter and angry veterans.
172
Quote
Most police agencies train new officers to be sprinters and then they enter them into a marathon.Ne wofficers start out highly enthusiastic, not able to get enough of police work; then as the years go byy, many officers go through some rather drastic changes in terms of how they view police work.
173
Who is most prone to experience the effects of the hypervigilance rollercoaster?
The answer is the best officers,the most dedicated, teh most committed, the most highly motivated, the ones practicing the best hypervigilance and officer safety.
174
Who is generally the first victim of hypervigilance in the officer's life?
The first wife...The first husband...or for officers who aren't married, it is their personal life as many choose never to get married
175
Quote
The officer himself is actually the first victim of the rollercoaster dynamic, although many other people are affected by the loss of emotional and behavioral balance in an officer's life.
176
Quote
As the number of non police related dimensions in officer's lives shrinks, officers are redefined. Well balanced individuals can be transformed into people who obtain the majority of their social and emotional needs from the police role.
177
What are some of the non police related dimensions that reduce or disappear from an officer's life?
Spirituality, cultural and ethnic identification, core values, family, friends hobbies
178
Quote
The men and women who began their police career as bright, wel rounded ethical officers begin experiencing major behavioral deficits in their personal lives. Officers can begin distancing themselves from core aspects of their sense of self. The officer's identity becomes tied only to the police role.
179
Quote
Often officers who previously defined themselves by multiple aspects of their lives now define themselves by the singular dimension of their police role.
180
Quote
The sense of self is the sum total of all of the separate dimensions of the individual that combine to define him as a unique, free thinking, independent and responsible person.
181
Quote
As behavioral activities of teh off duty phase of the rollercoaster continue to diminish, the sense of self continues to constrict. The broad sense of self at the time of entry into the field reduces to identification with only the police role.
182
I am a cop.
This can be an expression of significant and justifiable pride in being a law enforcement, or it can be an indication of significant OVERIDENTIFICATION with the police role and potentially a problematic perspective for the officer. It defines the essential core of the sense of self for the officer. It can transform a positive sense of pride in the prefessional rold into an overshadowing of the other essential aspects of the officer's life and identity. It can create a significant UNDERIDENTIFICATION with other life roles that balance each other and the cop role.
183
What are some roles that ann officer can UNDERIDENTIFY with as a result of OVERIDENTIFYING with the cop role
For example, friend, mother, father, bowler, hunter, gardener, golfer
184
Quote
Progressing across the span of a law enforcement career, this reduction of sense of self can produce a fragile individual. The officer's identity has been reduced from the previously broad based sense of self to a sense of self with only one dimension. I am a cop.
185
Quote
What would appear as an intense sense of pride in the prefession of police work actually makes the officer significantly more fragile emotionally for a few reasons. The "I usta" syndrome has reduced the number of available emotional support systems for the officer to rely on.
186
How is our sense of self controlled?
Functional and healthy human beings maintain some control over their sense of self. They believe that they have a degree of autonomy over theri existence and have a major say in the events affecting their lives.
187
Quote
People need to believe they have a significant degree of control over theri own day to day existence, a sense of predictability to most major events in their lives. This sense of control or autonomy an individual has in his life, the greater the degree of empowerment, stability and autonomy he will experience emotionally.
188
How is psychological dysfunction defined.
Stress or psychological dysfunction can be defined as the presence of low control in a person's life. Any situation that reduced the individual's degree of control in his or her own life can precipitate a sense of psychological distress. If the loss of control is combined with high demands the individual must handle, the degree of psychological imbalance or stress can be extremely high.
189
Quote
As predictability, autonomy and control of the sense of self decrease in a person's life, a sense of emotional vulnerability, susceptability and risk increase. As police officers decrease the number of dimensions or roles defining their sense of self and become increasingly invested in only the police role, they increase their level of emotional vulnerability.
190
If having a sense of autonomy and a degree of control over the events affecting one's life is essential for an emotionally healthy individual, how does the overidentification with the police role affect the officer?
The easiest way to explain how over identification with the police role can destroy an emotionally healthy individual is to demonstrate the concept of the need to have autonomy or control in one's life. As an officer's sense of self becomes increasingly linked to the police role, who controls his or her police role.At first officers believe that they alone will decide the kind of cop they will be. This response may appear to be an expression of emotional autonomy or self responsibility. They seem to be responsibile individuals who see themselves in charge of their own behavior and are willing to take responsibility for their actions. However, the question and the answer are a double edged sword.
191
So are the officers really in control of their emotional stability.
Example: If an officer feels that they are a competent, hard worker and do their job well. Couldn't a higher up put them back on patrol on a whim? If an officer has become emotionally vulnerable by having a one-dimentional sense of self, or overidentifying with the cop role, realize that that role consists of several dimensions that the officer does not control at all.
192
Quote
If the job becomes your life, and you don't control your job, then you don't control your life.
193
What parts of the job do officers have control over?
Officers clearly control 100% of their integrity, their professionalism and how well they do the job assigned.
194
What other forces do control the individual officer's copy role?
The agency, the administration or management, the courts, the constitution, the politics of the department, the local, state, or federal elected officials. Policies, uniforms, required procedures, budget, assignments, organizational goals are controlled by someone else.
195
What are some thingsthat might happen that officers may feel are an injustics?
Being taken out of detectives, getting pulled out of SWAT, being transferred, losing a case to another agent, having the worst car in the fleet. Officers refer to these as "getting screwed"
196
Quote
Officers unaware of the dynamic of emotional overidentification taking place can find themselves going through significant emotional turmoil. A sense of vulnerability leads to emotional susceptability which is a feeling of being constantly at emotional risk. Officers run the risk of feeling constantly in danger from the forces that control the police role. This can become an ever present sense of feeling emotionally at risk, vulnerable, susceptible, threatened or paranoid.
197
Quote
As some force outside tieir control affects the cop role, officers who over identify with the police role find the impact on their personal lives not far behind. Officers may
198
Fact
Officers may begin to feel overwhelming senses of distrust, anger, and open hostility toward management.
199
The Blame Game
Officers often get to the point where everyone is to blame for their problems. The common theme is a belief that a wrong has been done to the officer by the agency now or sometime in the past. The belief is that the agency did something to injure the indicitual officer by violating some standard of ethical treatment or fair play.
200
Quote
Many times, the officer's beliefs about having been victimized reflect a paranoid distrust of everything and everybody in management. Negative statements by some officers say more about the respective officer's worldview of distrust than they do about whatever person, organization or event on which they are commenting.
201
Quote
Many officers, particularly those who have overidentified with th epolice role, can find themselves seeing the world from the viewpoint of victims of some poorly defined organizational conspiracy.
202
Great Fact to remember
Nobody will escapre from a police career with their professional virginity intact. Everyone gets strewed by the agency at least one time.
203
Many officers cannot let the "getting screwed" part go
They are constantly upset with the agency over the wrongdoings or unfairness to which they have been subjected. They can recite every incident over th elast 20 years. These officers have fallen into the most common dilemma experienced by officers. They don't understand how they have become trapped in this endless conflict with their own agency and they don't know how to get out of it.
204
How do officers cope with being upset abou tgetting screwed?
They bitch about it, file grievances, file lawsuits, quit the agencyc, fill stress disability claims, say "I don't give a damn anymore", orchestrate votes of no confidence against the chief.
205
Quote
Those who fall prey to this dynamic is usually the best officers, those victimized by the hypervigilance rollercoaster, who unwittingly put the rest of their lives on hold. They are 26 hour a day officers. The reality of being one-dimensional is that the officers sense of self is totally invested in a role they don't control. Ironically, those who do control the officers' role are the very people the officers have the least amount of trust or faith in.
206
Quote
The more the officers focus in on only their police role and become consumed by what has happened to them because of the agency, the more the overcommitted officers empower the very individuals they least trust. This can be where the previously idealistic and motivated officer begins thinking of himself clearly as the victim.
207
Victims have no control
Not only do officers begin to think like victims, they think like paranoid victims. To not control the major part of their lives is extremely unsettling for officers to experience. In this context, officers begin to wear their victim status as a badge of honor. They begin to obsess. Becoming trapped in the victim role can be a career ending experience, at least ending the positive contribution to the organization that the officer in all likelihood previously made. THE HYPERVIGILANCE HE LEARNED ON THE STREETS TO SURVIVE IS NOW FOCUSED ON SURVIVING THE INTERNAL ORGANIZATION.
208
What phase of the rollercoaster does the officer control?
The officer has absolute control of the lower phase of the rollercoaster, his own personal life. But what if officers are doing nothing in the lower phase? Then, they control nothing.
209
Quote
Without training in emotional survival, the rollercoaster sets up officers to think, act and live like victims, to not invest their energy, emotions, and sense of self in the phase of the rollercoaster that they do control, the bottom or off duty phase.
210
Catch-22
Officers must maintain hypervigilance to perform an dsurvive on the streets and practice good officer safety, yet it is this same hypervigilance that can cause officers to relinquish control of their personal lives. They must maintain the elevated physical state of heightened awareness of potential risk while functioning as officers.
211
What happens without training and awareness of the rollercoaster?
Officers return home and experience the pendulum effect. The magic chair captures them. Weeks become months and months become years as the "I usta" syndrome robs officers of any other interests or outlets. It is the nonpolice support systems that determine if the officers remain good cops for the duration of their career. not just good cops for a few years followed by more years of perceiving themselves as victims and relinquishing their commitment to be the best cops they can be.
212
Quote
If officers continue to underinvest emotionally in the phase they actually control, they only intensify their victim status. Officers are in a trap. Without assistance, they won't be able to get out. They don't know what is going on in their lives emotionally. They spend all emotional energy trying to right the wrong they believe is causing their problems. Victim thinking has taken over their mindset. They are preoccupied with how they have been screwed.
213
Quote
Victim thinking is the first thing they think of and the last they think of at night. It doesn't matter what the actual issue is that has become all consuming because after a few years the issues change but the victim based thinking doesn't.
214
Paranoid victims
If a person tells the officer to "let it go," they will start recounting the wrongful acts perpetrated against them by the agency and they won't accept the coworker's perspective. Officers will then feel the coworker has sold out to the agency and that they, the victim officers, are the only "true defenders of the faith." They are the only ones who have the courage to stand up and tell it like it is. They are blind to the fact that the world, as they see it, has become condensed to only one issue, their perceived victimization by the agency. This is the officer's new world view.
215
Question officers need to ask themselves
Are you willing to remain a victim and focus in on what you do not have control of and rather focus on what you do control?
216
How do others perceive the victim?
Most rank and file officers may draw the conclusion that an officer is justified in how he feels toward the agency and is perfectly justified in doing as little as possible in his job because he's been screwed. Management seeing or hearing an officer talk of his attitude toward the agency could form the conclusion that he is just another poorly performing employee who doesn't appreciate how good he has it.
217
Fact
Both perspectives are correct. The management perspective is not focusing on what is taking place personally and is only viewing today's behavior. Other officers are not taking into consideration that the officer has an obligation to provide competent police services to his agency, regardless of whether he agrees with the position that he is assigned to.
218
Quote
Victims focus on what they do not control. Survivors focus on what they do control.
219
What are some victim-based thinking strategies that some officers might use?
He could attempt to rationalize his lack of commitment and dedication to being back in patrol as a response to the manner in which he has been treated by the agency. He could justify his minimal performance by stating, "If they don't care, why should I?" He could do as little as possible in his job or even become actively involved in attempting to undermine the agency administration.
220
Describe what happens when an officer focuses on victim based thinking?
The strategies involve considering the actions of individuals outside himself as the determining and responsible cause of his actions. They involve focusing on what he does not control-the actions of others. For some people, who have been living their entire lives as self perceived victims, this seems perfectly natural and rational. The officer doesn't take any responsibility to control his own level of dedication and motivation, or at least to control how he reacts.
221
Great Fact
Waiting for the world, and particularly the world of a police officer, to change and be asshole-free is going to be a very long wait.
222
Quote
The first victims of the hypervigilance rollercoaster are the hard working and dedicated police officers and their families. The second victim is the career itself. Officers who assume the victim orientation begin rationalizing and justifying to themselves behavior that they previously would have found unacceptable.
223
How woulld you describe the fellow officers that would agree with the victim?
This type of person is rejecting their own internal core values of service and dedication. they would begin defining themselves as the opposite of what they previously stood for. They would define themselves in oppositional terms to their previously held sense of self.
224
Quote
Malcontent officers are defining their lives by the job rold as much as positive, pro-agency, enthusiastic officers are. Whether positive or negative overinvestment, the officers are allowing their sense of self to be defined by individuals other than themselves.
225
How do malcontent officers have a self destructive orientation?
They now reject the very core values of commitment and enthusiasm that previously were central to their own self definition.
226
What do victims want?
restitution, fairness, righting the wrong done to them and retribution
227
How does this concept relate to real victims?
In the criminal justice system, each of the "victim" concepts has been violated. This is the reason REAL victims have a chance to speak at criminal sentencing hearings or th ereason juries award damages to real victims in civil court claims.
228
What about the self perceived victim in the workplace who wants to recover or take back an intangible, such as enthusiasm or dedication?
This is particularly difficult because what these people want to recover is in their control to begin with.
229
How do victims use thier victim role to cease investing in their work?
Self perceived victims can cease investing in the work rols many years before they retire or leave. Once officers see themselves as having been victimized, it can be hard to let it go and return to enthusiastic and committed work. Without assistance, these officers begin a predictable system of thinking that can start guiding their judgement and behavior.
230
List some attributes of a victim.
Merging of personal and professional roles, hypersensitivity to change (AKA the Brandon Broaddus effect), rigidity and in flexibility, ever present feeling of threat from the organization, belief one is being controlled or persevuted by the agency, need to retaliate against management for perceived wrongs, social isolation, grandiose sense of self importance, exaggerated perception of past accomplicshments, internalized sense of entitlement
231
What victim trait is the most damaging to law enforcement?
The internalized sense of entitlement. A belief in entitlement can permit the officers to rationalize behavior they would not normally engage in and see it as perfectly acceptable. They also blame others or externalize responsibility for their own behavior.
232
Quote
The decisions law enforcement officers are required to make demand individuals who are emotionally balanced and are not perceptually tainted by a victim orientation. Permitting law enforcement officers to make decisions from a victim perspective without benefit of emotional survival awareness is grossly unfair to law enforcement officers as well as the public they serve.
233
What does the movement from core values to situational values permit?
Based on the belief of being victimized officers rationalize behavior they previously would not have accepted in themselves. It permits the officers to project blame for their own behavior onto other people. They are saying, "It's the other person's fault how I behaved. I can't be expected to be a responsible person who is held accountable for my own behavior. I'm entitled to do what I did.
234
What is the basic paradigm of victim based entitlement thinking?:
They screwed me, which is why I engaged in this behavior. or "The rules don't apply to me because of what I had to put up with."
235
Quote
Possibly the daily exposure of police officers to individuals who refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions provides victim-based-thinking officers a paradigm for rationalizing inappropriate behavior. They can then utilize this paradigm to justifying their own professional misdeeds as officers. This thinking is clearly "victim" based because it projects accountability onto something the officer doesn't control-the behavior of the perceived offender.
236
Fact
By not providing training in emotional survival training so that police officers can clearly see the difference between self perceived victims and emotional surviversk law enforcement organizations don't give officers the ability to maintain their most valued asset: their core values. This failure of adequate career preparation allows officers to justify their behavior against a standard of situational values. It sets up the officers for failure and devastaton in their personal and professional lives.
237
What is the difference between core values and situational values?
Core values are your ethics and beliefs such as integrity and honesty. Situational values are what an officer might do in a given situation. For example, "I was justified in throwing that guy against a wall because he was an asshole."
238
When do officers begin engaging in acts of omission?
Good officers do not show their victim status by going out and doing something wrong. They go out and stop doint something right. Officers initially show they are self perceived victims by lowering their levels of production, their standard for professional duties. Officers justify the nonperformance of job duties based on their self perception of having been victimized by the agency. The begin engaging in acts of ommission.
239
Why are acts of omission a problem?
When the officer can rationalize any wrongdoing, whether by omission of duties or by active engagement in wrongdoing, the officer is violating his or her own core values and beginning a journey down a path that can have both personal and professional ramifications. Enthusiasm is replaced by diffuse anger. The active go-getter officer becomes the officer who sees nothing and hears nothing and does nothing.
240
Quote
Some agencies conduct business from the perspective that officers will feel like victims. They provide significant peer support for the nonperformance of duties.
241
Quote
When an officer sees themself as being a victim, they are actually doing harm to themself and his own sense of self esteem. The officer is beginning to self destruct. They may begin to permit traffic violators to offend to avoid writing citations. He is invalidating the importance and significance of their career. The victim-based assessment of what has happened to him permits him to say events outside of her control are causing the change in his professional orientation.
242
Quote
Some will say that a victim-officer is "demonstrating what he controlled by not being productive. He controls his self-initiated activity level." By engaging in acts of omission he is violating his own core values and damaging his sense of self eseteem as an officer and a person.
243
Quote
You should focus in on your core values and realize you, not the agency or organizational administration, are in control of your own behavior and demeanor.
244
During what phase of life do people begin to act like victims?
Victims unfortunately begin acting like a victim in all phases of their lives, and something such as a transfer can precipitate into a series of cascading actions that ruin lives and careers.
245
What can acts of omission lead to?
Acts of omission yield to acts of commission. The continuum passes from passive avoidance of duties due to the belief of having been victimized to the active commission of rule violations. First, the officer breaks or ignores administrative rules;ultimately, criminal violations can occur.
246
What are the two cornerstones of effective and ethical law enforcement?
Loyalty and integrity - The victim forgets loyalty and integrity and begins viewing the world as loyalty vs. integrity. Tragically, many victim officers value loyalty to fellow officers far more than integrity and honesty.
247
How does personal time management come into play in terms of being an emotional survivor?
The first step is to teach officers to maintain control of their personal lives. One of the first dimensions of control that officers lost is the day to day sense of being in charge of a schedule, of being able to control personal time. The ability to control activities seems to disappear soon after they become a law enforcement officer. The demands of the prefession push personal time to the back burner.
248
Quote
Survivors have a clear sense of personal time control. Sutvivors develop and continually use a specific and practical technique of personal time management, a strategy that permits them to harness the available time in their personal lives to accomplish whatever goals they choose to pursue. The development and use of a specific personal time management technique is extremely important for police officers.
249
What are the two main reasons that the development and use of a specific personal time management technique is extremely important?
Police work is not 24/7 and police work destroys spontaneity.
250
Describe "police work is not 24/7"
After a few years, officers begin to live their life as if they are on the job 24/7 (For example, wearing their fanny pack all the time!) During the early years of a career, officers learn that the job requires many more hours than a typical 40 hour week.
251
Describe "police work destroys spontaneity"
Officers lose their sense of spontaneity in personal activities because of the biological rollercoaster. The rollercoaster robs law enforcement personnel of all aspontaneity and enthusiasm after the work day had ended. Riding the magic chair leaves officers with a view of personal time that is less than self directed. Officers can spend the very limited hours of their personal lives sitting in front of the television set, letting life pass them by. The time spent in the magic chair is the beginning of a passive orientation toward personal time management. It doesn't take planning, it doesn't take goal setting, it doesn't take grabbing control of personal time.
252
Proactive vs. Reactive
Police work requires an onduty REACTIVE orientation as opposed to a PROACTIVE orientation. A reactive orientation is best understood in thinking about what many law enforcement officers do each day at work, particularly during the early stages of their careers. Although community policing has a goal of having officerss become more proactive in their orientation toward the police role, it will never reduce the innate REACTIVITY of police work.
253
When is being REACTIVE most effective?
For being prepared to respond when events unfold in the professional life of the law enforcement officer.
254
When is a REACTIVE orientation inadequate?
When it becomes the officer's worldview in his or her personal life.
255
Quote
It's a very different state of affairs to operate a patrol car as a police officer and wait for an event to take place or a call to be dispatched than it is to plan an activity with family or schedule time for physical fitness or recreation. On duty officers learn to see the world from the REACTIVE perspective as a means of increasing survival through hypervigilance and increased officer safety. Then they return home and attempt to continue being reactive, but there is typically nothing intense to react to, hence the feeling of let down. So some officers reactively ride the magic chair into a land of "I ustas"
256
Is a reactive orientation essential for street survival?
Yes, a reactive orientation is essential for street survival, but it can be deadly to a personal relationship. Officers need to appreciate the requirement of reactivity on duty but balance this with proactivity off duty. It is extremely difficult to make the transition from reactivitiy to proactivity due to the emotional and physical let down of hypervigilance.
257
Quote
Officers can determine if they are falling into the reactive mode at home by reviewing their decision making strategies to see if they are using a reactive time orientation in their personal lives.
258
How are victims and survivors different in terms of how they deal with time management?
Victims who do not have an aggressive sense of time management would just wait and see what happens and "go with the flow." Survivors would clearly understand that they need to develop a sense of control of their personal time.
259
Quote
With emotional survival training, police officers learn to appreciate the important need to take control of their personal lives and become proactive. They are trained to recognize the feeling of being drained after work as a symptom of hypervigilance. They are trained in how to overcome the feeling and not let it control their personal lives.
260
How do survivors thrive in terms of time management?
Survivors realize that the last thing they want to do when they return home is make a decision, so they develop a strategy to make the decision at an earlier point in time. They have been trained in the basic skills of personal time management. They learn to be disciplined in their personal time orientation. This means they maintain a preplanned, written personal calendar or agenda that lists goals, requirements, and choices in their personal time that they will implement. By controlling personal time, the officer is taking control, a basic survivor orientation.
261
What do survivors respond to their personal responsibility regarding time management?
Survivors realize that upon returning home, the last thing they would like to do is make a decision about what the evening's or day's activities will be. They wouldn't leave those decisions until the last minute. The concept of a preplanned, personal written calendar means that officers and families have become disciplined in terms of aggressively managing their personal time. By controlling their personal time, they turn off police work and turn on a personal life.
262
Why don't officers just "make the time" to do what they want in their personal lives?
One of the major difficulties in time orientation for police officers is that many officers think they can't find the time to do what they want to do in their personal lives. They need to make the time to do what they want to do. Officers find that the realities of police work and the magic chair will combine with the reactive professional orientation to fill each and every day between vigilance at work with the magic chair at home.
263
Describe how a family can help with the time management for an off duty officer?
Going out to dinner, for example, would look very different than the officer walking in the door and the spouse saying, "Let's go to dinner." The couple or family would have discussed the decision days earlier and placed it on their calendar. The couple has something they can control.
264
Quote
The difficulty is that victims, early in their careers, can combine the immediate sense of disappointment from having personal plans arbitrarily cancelled because of agency needs with the vegetative like state of the magic chair and cease to aggressively and proactively control their personal lives.
265
Quote
One of the basic reasons the personal lives of many police officers are lost is not due to a conscious effort to cease engaging in off duty activities, but to a loss of a sense of control of the time to do the activities. The frequency of non work related activity diminishes over the first few years of police work until it basically no longer exists. Learning to aggressively control personal time is a fundamental element of becoming an emotional survivor.
266
Quote
Survivors are empowered people. Victims have a sense of having been wronged and focus in on retribution, or retaliation against those they see as the party that victimized them, typically the agency where they are employed. Survivors have a very different orientations toward priorities in life.
267
What happens to families of "victim" officers?
Children and spouses can become secondary in the life of a law enforcement officer who is oscillating between the two extremes of the biological roller coaster.
268
What is the fundamental core issue for survivor law enforcement officers?
They possess a belief that they run their personal lives. This is a basic separation in orientation between the victim and the survivor.
269
What are the benefits of physical fitness for officers on the hypervigilance rollercoaster?
Physical fitness is not a luxury for law enforcement officers; it is a basic requirement if they are to become emotional survivors. The pendulum swing between the highs and lows of the roller coaster are the body's way of attempting to balance the effects of the extreme physical reactions caused by hypervigilance. This need to balance is a necessary process and it can be facilitated by aggressive physical fitness.
270
Describe the positive effects of physical fitness.
Physical fitness will accelerate movement out of the lower reaches of the roller coaster and back into the normal range of emotion. Physical fitness moves the off duty officer upward, back between the lines and into the normal range of emotion and social interaction. Physical fitness in terms of muscular flexibility and the possession of the necessary dynamic strength to perform the job duties is fundamental for the officer's physical survival. An officer who is a physical and an emotional survivor lives his personal life not in the depressive ranges at the bottom of the roller coaster but between the lines. They are spontaneous, outgoing and engaged in activities.
271
How much exercise is needed to be a benefit?
Appproximately thirty to forty minutes of aerobic activity, four to five times a week appears to be adequate in in creasing an officers off duty activity levels. This raises the bottom portion of the rollercoaster back into normal limits.
272
So, an officer is already tired from the day, wouldn't exercizing just make them more tired?
The sense of detachment , isolation, fatigue and apathy that typify the bottom of the rollercoaster respond positively to physical exercise. How do most officers feel after exercise? "Tired, but a lot better." Physical exercise not only raises the behavioral activity level of the officer, it also has significant stress-reducing components that give the officer a sense of relaxation and generalized well being.
273
How does exercise relate to anger management?
Moderate physical exercise is also an essential element kin any program of anger reduction. Officers who are angry often transfer that emotional distress into physically inappropriate behavior.
274
Quote
Not only is moderate physical fitness a key element in breaking the destructive aspects of the biological rollercoaster, it also provides officers a much needed physical outlet and relief valve to drain the effects of generalized job stress, and it helps maintain an overall wellness based lifestyle.
275
Why is aerobic exercise preferred for officers?
Aerobic exercise is any exercise that is rhythmic and repetitive and places the emphasis on the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. It focuses on the cardiovascular system and places the target heart rate as a goal of exercise. Exercises such as walking, biking, basketball, or exercise involving specialized aerobic equipment are readily available for officers.
276
Are officers resistant to exercise?
As the years pass and the biological rollercoaster takes its toll, officers stop applying their knowledge of physical fitness and begin living a sedentary off duty lifestyle, which typifies too many law enforcement officers day to day existence. Some officers are aggressively resistant to physical fitness and internalize it into their world view. "If they want me to jog, why don't they give me a take home car?"
277
Name a significant benefit of a maintained and disciplined physical fitness program.
It sets a period of time each day during which the officer puts the demands of police work on the back burner and takes responsibility for his own behavior-the very act of exercising. the individual who sets aside time four to five times a week to take responsibility for his physical fitness will also take responsibility for other personal life aspects that previously had been put on the back burner or abandoned. The very act of engaging in physical fitness means the officer is taking control and responsibility for his time and actions each day.
278
Describe how survivors control their financial well being?
One surprising aspect of physical fitness appears to be that officers who aggressively practive physical fitness and pursue physical activity in their personal lives appear to be somewhat more stable financially.
279
What do market researchers know about stress and spending?
Financial transactions are very difference on gender lines. Women who are mildly depressed whil go shopping. However, this "retail therapy" tends to be small purchases; a new purse, a new pair of shoes. When men are mildly depressed, they go buy big things;boats, cars, power tools.
280
What is stress related consumerism?
Spending patterns represent a vicious cycle that affects many officers and families who have not been trained in emotional survival. Stress related consumerism is an officer's attempt to move from the bottom reaches of the biological rollercoaster to the top by making novelty purchases. The cycle can become overwhelming when an officer has to work all available over time to pay for the binge purchase.
281
Quote
The officer's financial life can become one continuous interaction between making a mojor purchase that is designed to alleviate some psychological distress adn provide some recreational relief and the need to be forever increasing the number of off duty jobs and overtime hours to address the new financial obligation.
282
Fact
Many officers without having a sense of proactive control of their finances, experience significant distress economically in spite of enjoying an occupational career that is generally free of lay-offs and downsizing, with excellent retirement benefits.
283
Fact
Often, the financial secutiry of the law enforcement retirement program is a major factor in why a significant number of individuals remain in the law enforcement field long after the attractiveness or novelty of the job has passed.
284
How does financial stress relate to anger toward managenemt?
Financial frustration at an individual level can be transferred into collective bargaining unit frustrations with the management of an organization. Financial difficulties, as seen by an officer lacking in a sophisticated awareness of his financial status on more than one occasion have led to inappropriate ethical and even criminal violations of trust relationships when an officer takes inappropriate actions, motivated by short term financial gain.
285
How would financial security help with officer's sense of well being?
A sense of appreciation of financial security would also reduce anger and frustration as well as the need to continuously work second jobs to support short term emotionally generated purchases. Officers who have a sense of financial security are in a position to free themselves of anger and frustration at their employers and continue to invest energy into the professional goals that typified the earlier years of their careers.
286
Describe how officers need to balance being a cop and being a friend, spouse or parent..
One of the most difficult aspects of being a law enforcement officer is the need to strike a balance between being a highly effect law enforcement professional and at the same time an available friend, spouse, or parent outside of the law enforcement role. This capacity to balance multiple significant emotional roles in one's life is the central defining aspect of an emotional survivor vs. an emotional victim.
287
Quote
Honest and dedicated law enforcement officers have a difficult time accepting political favoritism, cronyism, disloyalty and dishonesty. Unfortunately, many good men and women can find themselves confronted with the paradox of being emotionally overinvested and defining themselves as law enforcement officers, yet at the same time beginning to hate the role, beginning a cycle of self hatred and destructiveness.
288
What defines a survivor?
Learning the skills to balance investment in the police role with investment in personal life roles is what defines a survivor. They have a balanced emotional investment. It's not so much that the survivor officer has learned to turn off police work at the en dof the shift as it is that he has learned to turn on the other roles. These other roles are dimensions of life where th eofficers have a sense of passion an dconcern and control and self determination.
289
Quote
Once officers reach the point of being emotional survivors, they experience a significant reduction in anxiety and defensiveness. Survivors place the central issues in their lives in their own control. They understand what they control and what the agency controls.
290
Read!!
pages 138-141 in the Emotional Survivor book
