| Psychological First Aid with People Facing Tough Times |
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The Use of Psychological First Aid with People Facing Unexpected Challenges in their Lives?
What are some reasons why people need Psychological First Aid?
These people may have experienced:
What are the challenges that people who are experiencing challenges to their lives face?
These people often experience:
What are some signs of “loss of faith” coming from these challenged people?
These people often experience:
What is Psychological First Aid?
Psychological First Aid is the practice of recognizing and responding to people who are experiencing emotionally challenging events in their lives who are feeling stress, problems with coping, and struggling to get their feet on the ground.
Through the use of Psychological First Aid:
Skills and Attitudes needed to provide challenged people with Psychological First Aid are:
- Demonstrating good listening skills
- Being patient with the challenged people
- Providing a caring attitude
- Being trustworthy
- Being approachable
- Providing culturally competent responses
- Responding in an empathetic manner
- Being non-judgmental
- Being kind
- Maintaining a committed effort to provide support
- Being flexible in providing what is needed to support these challenged people
- Being able to tolerate uncertainty, chaos, and ambiguity
What are some strategies of Psychological First Aid?
- To create a compassionate environment for these challenged people as a “rebuilding of faith” strategy
- To assess what challenged people might need at a particular time
- To provide immediate support to challenged people in stressful situations
- To create a helping environment which helps challenged people cope in the face of stressful events
- Providing sound guidance and support
- Creating an open and sharing coping culture
- Conducting regular and frequent meetings with people who are facing similar challenges
- Demonstrating and encouraging respect for confidentiality of these challenged people
- Creation of peer support systems for fun, rest, and recreation as well as for emotional, physical and spiritual healing
- Encourage these challenged people to keep a daily journal of feelings about what they experience
- Use painting or drawing art projects for these people to get out stress and anxiety faced daily in their efforts to cope and “bounce back”
- Use playing or listening to music to get out daily stress and anxiety
- Conduct a weekly or daily “debriefing” session with these people to “tell their stories” about stressors they are experiencing in trying to cope with their “new normal”
When should you refer a person you are assisting with Psychological First Aid for outside professional Assistance?
You need to refer this person if he or she:
- Begins to show signs of physical and mental fatigue where compassionate presence is not enough!
- Threatens to harm or kill self or others
- Cannot be calmed after PFA attempts to respond to needs
- Behaves erratically and exhibits questionable judgment possibly due to alcohol or drugs or shows signs of excessively self-medicating
- Acts confused and disoriented, saying or doing things that do not make sense in the context of the situation and may result in harm to self or others
- Has witnessed or experienced the death of a loved one, friend, co-worker or pet
- Has witnessed or experienced serious injury to self, relative, friend, peer or pet
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Psychological First Aid is process which can be applied to a variety of populations. What follows below is a powerpoint of a presentation presented on Feb 12, 2010 in Tampa Florida. The presentation was part of a larger program called: Pathways to Resilience: A Conference dedicated to family and professional caregivers. The program was sponsored by the James A Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa and the Tampa Bay Chapter of the American Red Cross.
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References on Psychological First Aid
C.S.T.S. (2005). Psychological First Aid: Helping Victims in the Immediate Aftermath of Disaster. Fact Sheet of The Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress. Bethesda, MD: Uniformed Services University, Our Nation’s Federal Medical School at http://www. usuhs.mil/csts/
C.S.T.S. (2005). Psychological First Aid: How you can Support Well Being in Victims of Disasters. Fact Sheet of The Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress. Bethesda, MD: Uniformed Services University, Our Nation’s Federal Medical School at http://www. usuhs.mil/csts/
Everly, G. S., Phillips, S. B., Kane, D. & Feldman, D. (2006). Introduction to and Overview of Group Psychological First Aid. Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention, 6(2), pp: 130-136.
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. (2003). Community-based psychological support Training manual.
Miller, J. (2006). Wave Amidst War: Intercultural Challenges While Training Volunteers to Respond to Psychosocial Needs of Sri Lankan Tsunami Survivors. Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention. 6(4), pp 349-365.
National Child Traumatic Stress Network and National Center for PTSD. (2005). Psychological First Aid: Field Operations Guide.
National Child Traumatic Stress Network and National Center for PTSD, Psychological First Aid: Field Operations Guide, 2nd Edition. July, 2006.
SAMSHA. (2005). Psychological First Aid for First Responders: Tips for Emergency Workers and Disaster Response Workers. Fact Sheet from SAMSHA
Zagurski, R., Bulling, D., Chang, R. (2004). Nebraska Psychological First Aid Curriculum. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Public Policy Center.
Links on Internet
Everly, G.S., Phillips, S. B., Kane, D. & Feldman, D. (2006) Introduction to and Overview of Group Psychological First Aid. Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 6:130–136. Available at: http://brief-treatment.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/6/2/130
Miller, J. (2006) Waves Amidst War: Intercultural Challenges While Training Volunteers to Respond to the Psychosocial Needs of Sri Lankan Tsunami Survivors. Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 6:349–365. Available at:
http://brief-treatment.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/6/2/130
National Child Traumatic Stress Network and National Center for PTSD. (2007). Psychological First Aid: Field Operations Guide For Disaster Mental Health Responders, July 2007. Available at: http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/ncmain/ncdocs/manuals/nc_manual_psyfirstaid.html
Nebraska Disaster Behavioral Health Psychological First Aid Curriculum at www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/dtac/EducationTraining.asp
Parker, C. (2007) Psychological First Aid Competencies for Public Health Workers. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Preparedness. Available at: http://www.jhsph.edu/preparedness/training/online/dis_mtl_hlth_comp.html
Psychological First Aid, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at www.centerforthestudyoftraumaticstress.org
SAMSHA. (2006) Psychological First Aid for First Responders. Rockville, Maryland: SAMSHA. Available at: http://download.ncadi.samhsa.gov/ken/pdf/katrina/Psychological.pdf
University of Nebraska Public Policy Center. (2005). Nebraska Psychological First Aid Curriculum. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Public Policy Center. Available at: http://www.disastermh.nebraska.edu/psychfirstaid.html
Weaver, J. Surviving the Stress that Comes From Helping Others Cope with Trauma. Eye of the Storm, Inc. Available at: http://www.eyeofthestorminc.com/index_SelfCare.htm
Wilderness Manuals. (2003) First Aid: Chapter 8. First Aid for Psychological Reactions: Importance of Psychological First Aid. Wilderness Survival. Available at: http://www.wildernessmanuals.com/manual_4/chpt_8/index.html
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