Psychological Intervention of Emergency Rescuers

From ancient times to the present, various kinds of disasters have occurred frequently, not only causing huge material losses and casualties, but also leaving people with potential psychological trauma. Emergency rescue workers are often faced with accidents directly, so they are more prone to a series of stress responses such as: anxiety, anxiety, drowsiness, anger, inability to concentrate, ups and downs, poor appetite, indigestion, poor sleep, etc. Serious people even begin to distrust others and affect job performance and social relations. Strengthening the psychological injury prevention for rescue workers and adjusting psychological interventions can help rescue workers adjust in the short-term psychological imbalance and continue to invest in rescue work with a good attitude and full enthusiasm.

Post-disaster syndrome

Disasters, especially after emergencies, can cause specific psychological consequences after a disaster. They are collectively referred to as "post-disaster syndromes" in medicine and are also called acute stress reactions. Stress response is a psychological reaction that occurs immediately after a disaster. It usually lasts from a few hours to several days and then quickly recovers. If it does not recover within a month, it will turn into a traumatic stress disorder that is not curable in the short term and may be accompanied by a lifetime if left untreated. After experiencing the Tangshan earthquake, gas leakage in Sichuan Province, Wenchuan earthquake, and Dalian oil depot fire accidents, some people have not completely shaken off the psychological shadow caused by the disaster. Some of them have been involved in emergency rescue workers.

Rescue workers include public security, armed police, fire fighting, military, medical and health, mining, hazardous chemicals, public place systems, news media communications workers, volunteers, as well as spiritual professionals, psychology professionals, and commanders at all levels of disaster relief work. After all those who participated in the emergency rescue after the disaster, their nature of work determined that they would face the most accidental disaster scenes. Therefore, even if they are fully prepared, they will experience various kinds of pain. When such pain recurs, the physical and psychological blow to the professional who implements the rescue is enormous, and the psychological stress response will follow.

The psychological stress response is characterized by abruptness, susceptibility, diversity, time, and outcome. The psychological response of rescue workers often experiences several stages such as sadness, resentment, fear, frustration, and evasion.

Professionals who undertake modern rescue work must not only master the material disaster relief technologies but also master certain psychological assistance technologies. This is determined by the dual tasks of material disaster relief and psychological disaster relief in modern society. In the face of enormous psychological pressure, rescue workers need not only use their own psychological assistance technology to self-regulate, but also require psychological professionals to intervene in their psychological crisis, so that psychological crisis trauma can be comforted as soon as possible to eliminate tension and prevent Rescuers have a "post-disaster syndrome" that affects the efficiency of the rescue.

There are two significant differences between the implementation of psychological relief for disaster relief personnel and general psychological treatment: First, the timeliness is strong, and psychological relief is carried out under the special circumstances of the disaster. The rescued person is in a dangerous situation and has been in tension and anxiety. In the state, the purpose of the rescue is to reduce the psychological stress level of the rescued person as soon as possible, so this is not a general psychological treatment ; secondly, the object of psychological relief is only a temporary psychological crisis, although the symptoms are obvious, but the degree of mental disorders is relatively low, so According to the psychological characteristics of rescue workers, they can conduct timely and appropriate psychological assistance to minimize the harm caused by psychological crisis.

The psychological assistance to rescue personnel includes: improving the organizational structure, staffing, equipment and facilities of the rescue team ; rationally distributing tasks ; reporting emergency events in a timely manner and helping rescue workers to carry out their work smoothly ; and psychologists reviewing the situation faced from a global perspective. Appropriate psychological interventions ; implementation of a shift shift system to enable rescue workers to supplement their physical strength ; enhance skills and drills in daily work ; attach importance to actual combat simulation and guidance; formulate work rules; publish mental health questions such as “Common Psychological Questions for Emergency Rescuers”. Manuals ; Pay more attention to the family, friends, and work teams of emergency rescue workers so that they receive the support and attention of the whole society.

When the tragic situation faced by the rescue personnel exceeds his mental capacity, his psychological defense mechanism will start. The psychological defense mechanism is also called self-defense mechanism. It is a term of psychology. It refers to self-repression. This kind of repression is a kind of subconscious self-defense function. It is intentional or unintentional in order to avoid mental pain, tension, anxiety and other psychological factors. Various psychological adjustments used. This defensive mechanism is self-deceptive in nature, to conceal its true motive, or to deny its possible cause of anxiety or the existence of memory. The psychological defense mechanism of rescue workers can sometimes help the individual to eliminate some emotional pains, but because it has to some extent the adverse effects such as “deceiting oneself” and “distorting reality”, it cannot really solve psychological problems effectively. Therefore, it is necessary to allow rescue workers to learn to adjust their psychological self-correction in a timely manner to correct the psychological imbalance, in order to avoid strong psychological trauma caused by psychological disorders, triggering mental, mental illness and physical illness.

First of all, when encountering difficulties or frustrations and experiencing negative emotions, rescue workers cannot escape and must face up to negative emotions. We must understand that it is a normal response and calm down to objectively analyze and seriously understand the causes of frustration and bad emotions. In order to find the best solution. Second, rescue workers must dare to express and expose their emotions so that they can control and control their emotions in a targeted and effective manner. Blindly suppressing and disguising bad emotions is not conducive to the healthy development of rescue workers' own emotions, and it is also not conducive to the shaping of good personalities.

Reasonable catharsis is a common method of psychological adjustment. It is to release unpleasant emotions through appropriate channels ( such as writing pen-pals, writing diaries, singing, shouting, etc. ) . In the "5.12" Wenchuan earthquake disaster, Gansu Province, rescue teams quickly and effectively to the implementation of disaster affected people to rescue, but rescue team members continue to face the horrors of the disaster area, but because of varying degrees of psychological stress generated . After the disaster relief mission was completed, experts and scholars from the Gansu Mental Emergency Rescue Center conducted psychological counseling for the disaster relief personnel for several days, demanding that the team members relax themselves psychologically, and explicitly requested that disaster relief personnel participate in the hot bath and massage. Effectively relieve pressure and encourage players to participate in cultural and recreational activities such as chorus and sports competitions, and use language suggestion methods, attention transfer methods, meditative ideas, and talks and catharsis methods to relieve various psychological stress responses resulting from disaster relief. After several days of catharsis adjustments, rescue workers gradually fell out of the shadow of bad mental health and actively faced work and life. It should be noted that catharsis should be chosen in a rational manner, and unscrupulous and unconscionable. It may be fueled by fire, but it will help generate bad emotions and add new annoyances.

The information in this article comes from the Internet and was reorganized and edited by China Rescue Equipment Network.