Okay, this is what I was looking for...
Rid, I have blanketed the start of the grief management and recognition under the CISD acronym. I would agree that the traditional CISD model was flawed when it was implemented, but I also feel that there is a considerable kickback from the psychologically wounded rescuer when a mental health professional is added to the mix. I keep reflecting back to an incident in the past year and how there wasn't a plan to manage the psychological trauma to the rescuers. I was told "find what works, write it up, and we'll look at implementing it." That being said, what worked last time was a peer discussion of grief, emotion, and depression with recogition of the various stages of grief so that the people who were new the rollercoaster would at least have an idea of what they're going to go through.
Vent, yes, I live in the "The King County." That being said, this isn't for a direct KC EMS agency, well it is and it isn't...
The only reference we make to that is an informal debriefing or meeting to update the situation, see if anyone is too distraught to continue the shift, remind silence to the press and pass out the telephone numbers for EAP or some employee referral system. There is also an open door policy to one of the supervisors, chief or whoever is in command who will then walk the person personally to the EAP office."
I couldn't think of a worse way to handle this sort of situation. I'm am going to throw in a caveat here, that I am not a mental health professional, I am a medical professional. That being said, I have had the opportunity to deal with people in the mental trauma of a hard loss of a patient, as well as other people with PTSD, and the majority of them do not call the employee referral system. There is a stigma to asking for help. I know on my first loss I didn't use it, and I woke up in cold sweats and nightmares. It wasn't every night, but it lasted for a good 6 months. I won't accept that anyone working for me doesn't have every chance to not go through the nightmare that I went through.
"Humans and their minds are too complex to be mucked with by someone with a "few hours of training". It is rarely the incident itself that causes the problems but the issues in someone's life and the way each individual is wired."
While you are partially right, you couldn't be more wrong. The stages of grief are fairly universal with the exception of some mental illnesses.
Do your co-workers a favor and promote care from an educated, well trained and licensed professional such as a clinical psychologist.
Well, as luck would have it, I do have access to a clinical psychologist, who I am bouncing these ideas off of, so I'm not going to go too far overboard without oversight...
"In the meantime, surf up Dr. Bledsoe's articles on the subject. There are also many other well researched references listed with his articles as well as those that will pop up on a medical search engine."
I've reviewed a few of Dr. Bledsoe's articles, and I will probably be contacting him shortly, but I'm slightly concerned of the defensibility of his controversial approach.
Thank you for your comments, and I look forward to more people sounding off and saying how they feel.
