Psychological Intervention In Emergency Situations
Given the good acceptance of our previous article Learn Psychological First Aid with this practical guide, we provide new tools in this article that will allow us to learn more about psychological intervention actions that are usually carried out in emergency situations
It must be taken into account that although these are crisis situations closely associated with stress, the characteristics of the situation mean that this type of work is carried out in a different way from what happens in normal psychotherapy in consultation.
Before talking about The basic principles of psychological intervention in emergencies, it is necessary to establish the most probable contexts in which to implement these intervention guidelines. They are generally the following:
The principles of psychological care in disasters and emergencies
The basic principles of intervention in these contexts are:
1. Protect
It is about making the affected people feel safe and protected. To do this, you must enable the areas of:
2. Direct
Direct through the necessary instructions for tasks that the affected person must do We remember that in the impact phase the victim may suffer alterations in the ability to process information, so our help in that sense becomes essential.
3. Connect with the victim
For which it is necessary to make use of resources that facilitate resume contact with family and acquaintances places that provide information including administrative ones, etc.
As we already mentioned in the previous article, we must:
Strategies used in caring for victims
In general, the intervention includes different strategies useful in these contexts such as:
Grief management
One of the most frequent and painful interventions for victims is coping with the loss of a loved one (or several) when the emergency situation produces it.
In this sense and once the impact phase is over, Grief intervention is usually recurrent when there have been deaths This intervention is carried out on both affected people and family members.
We can say that grief is a normal emotional reaction to the loss of a loved one. This is a process that must be carried out correctly to avoid future problems. In that sense, William Wordem (1997) describes perfectly in his practical book The Treatment of Grief: Psychological Counseling and Therapy, the tasks that the person must perform to overcome and correctly process grief These tasks are four and must follow the following order, although sometimes task I and II are given together:
Task I. Accept the reality of the loss that is, the person assumes with pain and even with a certain feeling of “unreality” that the death has occurred, there is no going back
Task II. Express the emotion and pain of loss
Task III. Adapt to an environment in which the person who has died is absent.
Task IV. Continue living.
The complicated duel
All these tasks They are usually carried out over the following months after death, in a gradual and progressive way. Normal periods are even understood as those that reach two years.
On the other hand, not completing all of these tasks can lead to complicated or unresolved grief. In these cases, the person remains “anchored” in one of these phases for a long period of time (even years). The following manifestations are expected:
Sadness.
Anger.
Fatigue.
Impotence.
Shock.
I long.
Relief.
Guilt and reproach.
Anxiety.
**Loneliness. **
Insensitivity.
Physical sensations, such as: emptiness in the stomach, tightness in the chest, tightness in the throat, etc. *
The difference between a normal and pathological grief reaction will be marked by the temporal factor. Thus, not being able to think about the deceased a few days, weeks or a few months after death will be normal. It won’t feel like this happens ten years after death.
To learn more about the subject, you can consult the distance course on psychological first aid that Formación Psicológica organizes on its website.
Wordem, W. “The Treatment of Grief: Psychological Counseling and Therapy.” 1997. Paidós Editorial.
