Friday, March 16, 2007

Compulsory counselling??

Instead of compulsory counselling after a traumatic incident these guys reckon having a stiff drink might be just as, if not more, useful.

Chris Haslett, a psychiatric registrar at Hillmorton Hospital in Christchurch and a New Zealand Alpine Club member, said research suggested that an emotional debriefing could be counterproductive and reinforce traumatic memories.

His view is backed by the Christchurch police search and rescue team co-ordinator, Sergeant Tony Tully, who said the trend for compulsory counselling was too rigid and it should be up to individuals to find the best way to deal with what they had encountered.


Up to the individuals? How radical. How blasphemous. How sacrilegious. We could never have that.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The best paper on this was in the BMJ some years ago. People who were in road crashes were offered debreifing "it must be horrible... share your emotions" or nowt. Those who had nowt were LESS likely to post traumatic stress disorder.

As most docs know this we... make sure we are busy when 'debreifings' are on