With the recent resignations of some of our best local, front line police officers and the huge cost of paying them out, we are asking the question “is enough being done to manage the obvious trauma these people are exposed to”?
Local psychiatric nurse Les Watt is a Nelson-based mental health specialist of over 35 years experience and a family therapist who says the most important task we have as individual human beings is to look after our brain, as we need it well-functioning to figure out our next move in a constantly changing world.
“An insidious danger to good brain health is trauma and how we manage its effects. We can generally manage quite a bit of stress for some time, but there is a limit,” says Les.
Experiencing trauma for around 18 months can be about the maximum a normal brain can cope with, Les says, as after this period people can become seriously and chronically incapacitated and take years to recover.
The New Zealand baby boomer’s generation will remember how many were raised by detached and distant dads who had returned from war seriously traumatised after five solid years of fighting in World War II. Shorter tours of duty are now the norm, largely because of the number of returned servicemen and women who were seriously incapacitated despite not being physically wounded.
“I believe trauma probably affects more kiwis than any other mental health condition, yet is largely ignored by most health professionals. The police are in the firing line with regard to managing serious incidents involving tragedy.”
With most people reluctant or unable to see how trauma is reshaping their responses and personality until there is a critical incident that stops everyone in their tracks, Les says the difficulty is that trauma is insidious. “An added problem is that sometimes police officers suffering from anxiety symptoms in stressful situations can be looked down on by their fellow officers and superiors, and consequently they become reluctant to report stress symptoms for fear of damaging their mana or chances of promotion.”
Because each and every person reacts and copes differently, it is unknown when somebody will finally overload with accumulated trauma effects and respond accordingly. “The police work hard but they don’t have magical brains, in fact none of us do.”
If you have experienced trauma or this article has triggered a strong response, you can seek support by contacting ‘Need to Talk’ 0800 1737 1737.
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