Articles

Think Before Doing

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat" Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, an ancient Chinese military treatise.

It is extremely hard for human beings to do something new rather than something they are already familiar with. This is especially so when they are caught up in an extraordinary event. The known path is the path that is usually perceived to be the path of least resistance, that is, the easier path. But the easier path is not necessarily the best path when we are considering emotional first aid. In fact the usual things we might try under other less complex circumstances may not work if they are badly timed or poorly thought out while intervening during or after a disaster.

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Important Crisis Intervention Background and Terminology

A crisis is an acute emotional reaction to a powerful stimulus or demand. Combat is one of the most mentally and physically demanding experiences that often produces a crisis reaction or a state of emotional turmoil, but it is not the only one. There are 3 characteristics of all crises: 1) the usual balance between thinking and emotions is disturbed. 2) The usual coping mechanisms fail. 3) There is evidence of impairment in the individual or group involved in the crisis.

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Healthy Family Liaisons

Recent media reports about family liaison officers who abandoned their own families and moved in with the family of the deceased firefighter or other emergency services worker that they were helping have caused many departments to re-evaluate this important emergency services tradition. Some are on the verge of abandoning any official endorsement of the family liaison officer role. That would be a serious mistake. The programs are just too important to consider dropping. When properly run, a family liaison program can reduce some aspects of the pain and chaos associated with the loss of the loved one. Others departments, instead of dropping a potentially helpful program, are appropriately adding new guidelines and procedures to prevent similar problems in the future.

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Easy Does It

It happens in almost every disaster. Some folks just cannot resist the temptation to self-deploy. Truthfully, some independent responders have been helpful under certain circumstances in the past. Freelance responders, however, are more likely to inadvertently generate further problems for people already in the disaster zone.

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