TREATING THE EFFECTS OF TRAUMA ON THE CRIME
SCENE
INVESTIGATOR
By Dr. David Christiansen
This article was reprinted from The Silent
Witness, The Official Publication of the Rocky Mountain Division of
the International Association for Identification.
Imagine a crime scene. Picture in your mind the gruesome sight of a
family dispute that went terribly wrong and the result is a
blood-spattered home in which weapons were fired and once-vibrant
lives were cut short in a rampage of violent anger.
Hard to image, isn't it? Not if you are a crime
scene investigator who has been called in to re-create the scenario
and determine who shot whom and in what order. Crime scene
investigators are called upon to examine such scenes while the
bodies are still present, the
smell is still malodorous, and the essence of life only faintly
removed. The scene is still and quiet but it is not hard to imagine
the chaos that resulted in such tragedy and it's not
hard to see that perhaps only hours ago each of the dead bodies in
the room was alive with the hopes and dreams that resides within
each of us. Often it is not hard to imagine
that the stressors and frustrations that led to such a horrible
scene are somehow common to all of us one time or another.
The immediate reaction is repugnancy, an attempt to somehow turn
away from what is presented visually to us, to minimize it's impact,
to want to make it go away. We turn
to a variety of coping strategies that we are seldom forced to use
elsewhere. In the beginning we may leave the room or take a role in
the most remote way we can, to stay on the periphery, to do the work
least connected with the worst of it. Others may turn to poor
attempts at humor to appease their own anxiety. Some grow silent, as
the scene seems to permeate them, moving through them like a cold
fog. Still others become very factual, attending to detail in such a
way that the personalities of the slain people are removed and human
vitality is reduced quickly to numbers and angles and number of
rounds fired.
It is hard enough to imagine this scene once and yet crime scene
investigators are asked to repeat this process dozens, sometimes
hundreds, of times in their careers. And often they are asked to do
this without ever giving a hint that it is disturbing, or
frightening, or too close to home. Being professional is sometimes
construed as being tough or
impervious to the emotional anger, confusion and depression that
swallows the investigator in unknown ways and leads to intra-pshyic
turmoil that often goes undetected for years. Unchecked, it can lead
to numerous problems that are frequently misunderstood.
One of the consequences of having a job definition which includes
frequent exposure to trauma or it's aftermath, is an insidious
infection of pessimism, a growing sense of
hopelessness that begins to permeate the professional's personal
life. It is observed at first as frustration or anger that such
trauma exists, and it can end with a pervasive sense of futility.
What begins with an unspoken outrage that people do unspeakable
things to other people ends with a philosophical despair that can
lead to an abrupt change in career or worse, suicidal depression.
On the other hand, a professional can so insulate himself and harden
himself so that he is numb to such situations and begins to detach
himself from the very real human aspects of any tragedy. This can
often transcend into one's personal life and a growing tendency to
trivialize the more mundane difficulties endured by loved ones. It
is as though the professional's yardstick for measuring human
emotion is inexorably altered to include the bizarre and sensational
at the expense of concern for day-to-day difficulties. The
professional then comes across to his own family and friends as
uncaring or insensitive when in fact he has been traumatized himself
into a new dimension of awareness. These problems are undoubtedly
complicated by a professional expectation that one remains
unmoved by tragedy and stoic in responding to the obscene. A culture
is maintained in which emotion is considered weakness and
imperturbability a virtue despite the outcome that it costs
colleagues their careers and sometimes their lives.
The result, too often, is an accumulation of
emotional distress that psychologists refer to as post-traumatic
stress disorder. This disorder came into clear focus following the
Vietnam era when many veterans returned from combat and were quickly
sent home, individually, to communities who did not respond to the
sacrifices made by the veterans, there were no "hero's welcome"
parades, no national celebration which served to put the war into
perspective of service in the name of freedom. Thus isolated and
"untreated", the veterans began to seek treatment years after the
conflict, troubled by a lack of emotionality, exaggerated startled
responses, and hyper-vigilance. In essence, even years after
returning home, the impact of the trauma they had seen was vividly
recreated in their minds and triggered by normal events in life.
Crime scene investigators are subject to the
same types of devastation of human life, though often over a greater
period of time and in smaller portions. Post-traumatic stress
disorder can be seen in professionals who lose their perspective,
who develop negative
explanatory styles, and react to stress in ways that further
exacerbate the problems rather than relieving them.
There are several steps that can be taken to ameliorate the
situation and to provide relief from the complicated problems that
result. Research has shown that "de-briefings meetings are effective
in relieving the immediate effects of a traumatic situation. It is
important to have a mental health professional available to
facilitate the meeting, keeping the group on task and looking for
indictors of distress. A "peer counselor" is often desired as well,
someone who has been in the trenches who now serves as a
co-facilitator, in essence validating the effects of trauma on the
professional. The purpose of debriefings is to identify the
immediate effects of stress, to give verbal and consensual
expression to what would otherwise remain unspoken. Saying even a
few words and receiving the
support from others present at the scene often serves a healing
purpose and frequently is preventive of further psychological
damage, which is fostered by isolation.
A second step toward mitigating potential problems for professionals
is the availability of a psychologist for individual follow-up. When
law enforcement agencies recognize the inevitable effects of stress
on those who respond to trauma, they can set the tone for recovery
by encouraging their employees to seek help without indemnity. A
healthy agency encourages it's employees to seek help they believe
has occurred as a result of the job and recognizes the long-term
benefit and cost effectiveness of a "dose" of therapy delivered at
the time. And they may weigh those costs against those of hiring and
re-training someone to take the place of those who leave the
department for unspecified reasons.
Changing the culture of the crime scene investigators may take some
time. It can be started when one professional acknowledges when a
scene is gruesome and offensive to the senses or notices when a
colleague is particularly affected. It may be the first or the
forty-first scene one has been on that trips the trigger of
emotionality from which the professional may have difficulty
recovering. A particular smell, or sight, or reminder of one's own
family may be the impetus for emotional discontrol and the best
remedy is verbal expression and validation of emotion.
Although "therapy" and "seeing a therapist" sounds like a serious
problem, many people who do seek help are ordinary people who are
having difficulty adjusting to one of life's
trials and their "therapy" is often brief and very helpful when
given by a trained professional. One's own philosophy of life is
often challenged by such serious events and may need adaptation in
order to continue to be of help to the individual. For example,
many children are raised with the belief that if someone behaves
well then no ill or evil will cross their path. Or we tend to
believe that bad things happen to bad people. This philosophy can go
unchallenged by some adults but most of us have to adjust our
philosophy to include the fact that sometimes innocent people are
victims of very
hurtful, malicious people through no fault of their own. Having a
personal philosophy which allows for trauma to occur to the innocent
can be a preventive measure to help
insure that the professional is not overwhelmed by the grief and
sadness their daily work brings to them.
On a more practical note, those who are traumatized often suffer
from insomnia, unable to sleep because flashbacks occur
involuntarily. To be brief about this, those persons are often
helped through focusing on the body itself, rather than the trauma.
This will sound too simple to those who have suffered the effects of
trauma but the sleep cycle can be restored by focusing on what I
refer to as the "Three B's," body, breathing, and the brain.
First, one has to totally relax the body using progressive
relaxation, often beginning with the toes and finishing with the
head and shoulders. Tension of muscles followed by relaxing of the
muscle groups in a progressive manner leaves the body feeling more
calm and the individual more aware of where the body tension is
being stored, in the hands, for example, or in a clenched jaw. Once
the body is relaxed, the interior muscle groups of the body can be
calmed through deep breathing, usually 12-15 breaths released slowly
through the nose will further relax the body and it sends a signal
to the adrenal glands to "calm down" for the night.
Lastly, learning to focus one's brain on a
given thought for several minutes will often lead to sleep. When
these steps are repeated, not only at bedtime but throughout the
day, a person learns how to bring the effects of trauma in the body
(racing thoughts, sweating,
poor digestion, ect.,) under conscious control and relief comes more
quickly. This does take practice and may in fact be learned prior to
trauma so as to alleviate the problems more effectively following
the trauma.
In sum, crime scene investigators and others who are required to
attend to traumatic situations as part of their professions can
better secure themselves against severe aftereffects by
1) anticipating trauma and developing a personal philosophy or explanatory style which brings intra-psychic resolution and
2)
by developing an agency policy which allows professionals to
seek help
without recrimination but instead is encouraged by the agency and
3) developing relationships with colleagues in which spontaneous, on-the-scene assistance is offered and
4) requesting and receiving debriefings from trained professionals and
5) learning effective ways of regulating the body and brain into being more cooperative following trauma by restoring a regular sleep cycle as quickly as possible.
Perhaps it is time for agencies involved
regularly in trauma response to formulate policies that will assist
in the well being of their professionals, to prevent "burnout"
and personal despair, and instead to acknowledge that others
are trained in providing assistance in times of need.
Dr. David Christiansen is a psychologist in private practice
in Greeley, CO and he is an adjunct faculty member at the University
of Northern Colorado, He is a consultant with law enforcement
agencies and provides training and professional services to persons
affected by trauma.
He can be reached at:
David L. Christiansen, Psy.D.
Licensed Psychologist
3527 W. 12th St. Suite 201
Greeley, CO 80634
(970) 352-2774