It is impossible to predict who will get PTSD, however, several factors are known to contribute to the development of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in police officers. These include, but are not limited too:
 personal identification with the event |
| knowing the victim |
| lack of preparation, or lack of knowledge of the
event ahead of time |
| the severity and intensity of the event |
| accumulative exposures to Post Trauma Stress |
| chronic exposure to a traumatic incident |
| pre-existing Post Trauma Stress Disorder |
| helplessness |
This can occur on a conscious or subconscious level. Often it is the latter and not recognized.
Probably one of the more common situations is an officer who has children, handling the death of a child with the child's mother and/or other family members being present. One of the affects that can occur from this is the officer unknowingly emotionally and physically distancing himself or herself from their loved ones. Some officers are known to have seen the faces of their children on the faces of dead children while on calls they have handled.
Another example is when an officer has had a close family member/loved one commit suicide or die traumatically, he or she may identify with the victims of certain suicides or other traumatic deaths similar to the one of the loved one.
Though not common, there have been incidents where officers have responded to traffic fatalities or serious crimes, on arrival finding out the victim is their wife, children or another family member. More common, officers working the same beat who have made friends with people in the beat, such as a store clerk, may end up dealing with the same individual as a homicide victim.
In some of the smaller or more rural agencies it's near impossible not to know a victim.
Depersonalization is easier in the larger cities, and a very helpful survival tool.
Studies have shown that trauma that is encountered as a surprise has more ill affects than trauma that is anticipated.
Being mentally prepared at all times is a major component of training all throughout an officer's career. So much time is spent making officers prepared for a shooting at all times, that you could easily become paranoid.
Police work requires interaction with people on many levels, and no matter how prepared a person is there are always events it is impossible to prepare for. The nature of the job is that officers will occasionally drive or walk into a traumatic situation not knowing what is happening.
Certain trauma is so severe and intense that it would affect just about anyone. Officer involved shootings wherein the suspect(s) shoots one or both of the officers is one example. A fight for your life with someone who has the ability to take your life is another. Remember the suspect in Scotland that wiped out most of the small children in a small school?
Over the course of a career officers will inevitably be exposed to a variety of different life/death traumatic situations. Most they will be able to handle and process. However, every once in awhile one will come along that will have a minor affect them. These are the common everyday traumas that are routine, but for some reason, the officer held on to a certain part of the trauma. These are the incidents where one, in and of itself, has little affect. The officer notices it as minor, most other people will never hear about it. No big deal, another day on the job.
As time goes on, the same officer encounters another minor trauma, similar, but slightly different. Sometimes it will be on the same theme, sometimes not. Time progresses, and then there's another, then another, then another, and possibly a more serious trauma with more serious impact on the officer. Fifteen years down the line, the officer is "burned out", but there's no one incident that he/she or anyone can identify as the problem.
"Burn out" can come from other forms of stress, but in law enforcement it is not uncommon for it to be a combination of accumulative Post Trauma Stress added to the accumulative years of other stressors. "Burn out" has long been a term used in law enforcement to describe the affects of chronic and/or accumulative stress on officers. It is so common that it has become a normal term within law enforcement, it no longer carries the weight or insight that it should. It's become a term to minimize the affects of what has happened to the officer, not only by the Dept. and other officers, but also by the officer who has been traumatized.
It is my belief that the affect of accumulative Post Trauma Stress on officers is underestimated. If you know someone who is "burned out", take a look at the symptoms of Post Trauma Stress Disorder and see if they look familiar. As previously indicated, there are other stressors that can lead to burn out, but Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is definitely one of them.
These are traumatic incidents on a life/death scale that take a long time to be handled, such as natural disasters or airplane crashes. Critical Incident Stress Debriefing Teams are an asset in these incidents. Although first responders may encounter Post Trauma Stress due to the severity of the incident, officers arriving at the scene at a later time can be briefed, their time of exposure controlled, and then debriefed, to help prevent chronic exposure to Post Trauma Stress.
CISD teams, however, are not utilized by many agencies.
During the 1970's a number of Vietnam Veterans returned home and became law enforcement officers. Many were highly sought after by agencies as they had been exposed to trauma and had experience working under extremely stressful life threatening conditions. Although "combat fatigue" has been discussed since WW1, Post Trauma Stress Disorder was not defined until the early 1980's. What happened to our troops during and after the Vietnam War led to the definition of PTSD.
The people who obviously suffered from "combat fatigue" could not pass the psychological exam required to become an officer. However, because of a number of factors, including lack of knowledge about PTSD symptoms and their impact on a person, delayed onset, non-disclosure intentionally or unintentionally, some of the veterans who already had PTSD from Vietnam became police officers. On the positive side, historically, veterans have generally made very good police officers. On the negative side, if the veteran already had PTSD and encounters certain types of Post Trauma Stress, it can make a bad situation much worse for them.
Another common type of PTSD pre-existing when a person enters law enforcement is from childhood abuse. Some who have suffered from childhood abuse who want to be a police officer may have dealt with the trauma before applying for the job, but some have not. Some will never have to deal with it. Some will.
More than a few studies have been done to attempt to identify the types of people who want to become, and do become, police officers. According to one expert, 60% of all law enforcement officers have a parent who was an alcoholic. Adult children of alcoholics are known for their ability to maintain control in hostile environments and bury their own feelings. This is a positive trait for a police officer, but can lead to problems in dealing with Post Trauma Stress.
It is this author's opinion that many people who were abused as children are drawn to the emergency services. They have a strong desire to help other people and serve others. Many officers who were abused as children have become some of the best police officers, having experience, insight, and compassion other officers cannot sometimes appreciate. On the other hand, these officers may be more likely to identify with victims and be more impacted by certain types of trauma than other officers.
Pre-employment psychological exams now screen for people who have PTSD. Again, the ones that are obviously exhibiting signs of Post Trauma Stress Disorder should be discovered by the exams. People who have developed PTSD prior to law enforcement are not always significantly symptomatic if and when they apply to be police officers. In fact, a number of these individuals may have no recall of any previous trauma, particularly if it is childhood trauma.
People who have PTSD are more susceptible to being traumatized than people who have never been traumatized. They are also more susceptible and responsive to other forms of stress. If their trauma is not remembered, in law enforcement they run a risk of experiencing an incident that will unlock the memories of the earlier trauma.
Feeling helpless is an uncomfortable feeling for most anyone. For police officers, we are trained to never be helpless (or at least don't show it if you are). We are who you turn to when you need help. To a police officer, feeling helpless is usually a feeling that is not forgotten, especially if it's in the form of a life/death trauma to yourself or another person, especially your partner.
One of the more common helpless feeling traumas are when an officer cannot save a person who is dying or dead, especially a child.
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