As promised, we begin a new book study of a Timothy Wilson book entitled Redirect. He is researching the best way to help persons who have experienced a traumatic event. Since my retirement from public education in 1993, I noticed that each time there is a crisis at any public school particularly involving an unexpected death, the school will bring in a team of counselors trained in a technique called Critical Incident Stress Debriefing. The premise of such an approach is that the sooner victims can express their feeling instead of bottling them up; the less likely they are to suffer from long term post traumatic stress disorder.
A more recently developed approach requires a victim of a traumatic event to wait several weeks and then process the event in a written journal experience that describes the event and how it has affected them. Researchers have done longer term studies on people exposed to both approaches and came up with unexpected results. Wilson says, “Thirteen months after a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, people in the CISD group had a significantly higher incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder, were more anxious and depressed, and less content with their lives than those who waited to do the writing approach.”
Those who followed the writing approach showed improvement in immune system functioning, are less likely to visit physicians, get better grades in college, and miss fewer days of work. Why is delayed writing a better approach to handle trauma than immediate stress debriefing? Wilson says we’ve known for some time that people spend lots of psychic energy trying to banish traumatic experiences from our mind so we can cope with the pain. Waiting several weeks allows us time to process the trauma emotionally on our own and then the writing allows us to step back and reframe what happened to us. Wilson concludes that, “forcing people to talk about traumatic events right after they happen, can solidify memories of it, which makes it harder for people to reinterpret the events as time goes by.”
I now understand why I’ve always had an uneasy feeling about the instant processing of trauma and now understand why. It’s not the best approach.
Schools should be up to date on these finding so they can better serve their students.
Next week’s topic, Shaping our Narrative-Increasing Personal Well-Being.