The Success of Emergency Psychology in Assisting Individuals in Emergency Situations - Report Example

Emergency Psychology Name Institution Abstract Emergence psychology is the supportive response offered to individuals who have been affected by a disaster and in need of a support. The individuals affected may be the primary victims, first responders and the vicarious observers. Emergencies are known to create social and psychological problems. Some of the issues that emergency psychology helps deal with include grief, depression, anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. The aim of emergency psychology is to help the affected individual deal with the emotional and practical needs that arise. One of the important tools applied during emergency psychology is the eye movement desensitization and reprocessing tool that allows the victims deal with the situation and adopt more adaptive behavior. The success of the emergency psychology in assisting individuals in emergency situations is guided by the elements that aim to promote safety, calm, connectedness, self-efficacy and hope. Emergency Psychology Psychology is the study of how the human brain works and how their brains affect our behavior. It can also be defined as the study of the working of the brain either consciously or unconsciously. Psychology is both an academic disciple and a social science. It seeks to appreciate people by establishing common principles and particular cases. Emergency psychology involves the mental health and wellness of people during extreme events. Emergency psychology deals with how different people react to different types of emergencies, disasters and crisis and the reasons that makes them react the way they do. A major emergency refers to an event that happens with little or without any warning, causes death or severe injury, threatens to cause harm or death, damages property, infrastructure or the environment in a way that is beyond what normal life events would. Different people react in different ways during times of disasters [Cla162]. Emergency psychology seeks to help people to cope with these emergency traumatizing events. These events range from natural disasters caused by acts of God to disasters that are caused by human error or human inefficiencies. They may include natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes floods, ranging wild fires that burn for long periods of time and burn into people’s homes and residential areas, floods or volcanic eruptions. Accidents are also crisis or emergency events that affect people psychology. This includes mining accidents, car, and airplane or ship accidents. Accidents that have the capacity to affect people’s lives and cause harm range from those that occur during day to day activities such a as driving home to work to those that only occur when doing other activities such as mountain climbing. Observing a terrible event like a car accident may also cause psychological trauma on a person and require help (Webster, et al, 2014). Other events which apply emergency psychology include experiences of violence, being held hostage, the death of a close person or news about having a deadly disease. The growth of technology in recent years has raised the standards of living of many people but it has also led to people being more exposed to accidents and increased the risk of catastrophes occurring. On the upper side is that many of the people who have experienced disasters and survived is on the rise. The effects of experiencing a disaster can physically and psychologically devastating. The world has made great strides in reducing the impact of disasters physically by taking appropriate preventive measures. Another factor that has helped reduce the impact of disasters is early warning of the possibility of a disaster occurring and the existence of rescue initiatives specialized for handling emergency occurring. Many measures have over the years been taken to handle physical effects of disasters but people have only stared to understand the psychological effects of disasters in recent years. The study of psychological effects of started after recognition of a number of factors such as the recognition of the impact of mass disasters on mental health, and the increase of acts of terrorism in the world. The first stages of development in any field face some challenges and the development of emergency psychology has also faced a few challenges (Webster, et al, 2014). We are however hopeful that as years progress, strides will be made towards making emergency psychology services available for all victims of disasters. Problems associated with emergencies Emergencies are known to create different problem at the individual, family, community and societal level. It is quite clear that during emergencies, the protective supports that are usually present at times. This increases the risks of experiencing diverse problems which makes the present problems to be amplified. Different individuals are known to experience the same event in different manner. The problems are related to social and psychological issues [IAA10]. Mental and psychological issues arising from emergency situations are interconnected and are known to give rise to social and psychological problems. Some of these problems include; the pre-emergency social problems that are experienced by a category within the community that tends to be discriminated against or marginalized as well as facing political oppression. The emergency-induced social problem include family separation, safety issues, stigma, disruption of social systems, lack of means of livelihood, destruction of community structures and resource and lack of trust [IAA10]. Some problems are also related to humanitarian aid and include overcrowding, lack of privacy in camps and undermining of traditional support systems. The psychological problems that are experienced in times of emergency include; the already existing problems such mental problems, depression, and substance abuse; the emergency related problems such as grief, non-pathological distress, resolve to engage in substance abuse, depression, anxiety disorder including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTCD); they humanitarian induced problems caused by anxiety as a result of lack of information on food distribution [IAA10]. The aim of emergency psychology Emergency psychology is humane, caring and compassionate. It seeks to helps those affected by emergency deal with the emotional and practical needs. This type psychological helps is necessary to help people attain the capacity to recover. It aims to facilitate the recovery process by helping the people in need to recognize their immediate needs and match up with their strengths and ability to meet these needs. Emergency psychology helps to influence a person’s belief in their ability to deal which is necessary in predicting the outcome. The emergency psychology is essential in helping people to keep calm, reduce distress, make them feel secure, create a human connection, offer social support, help people come to terms with the disaster and its context. It is also an important way of helping people with early screening to identify people in need for extra and specialized help. Emergency psychology helps individual develop adaptive functioning that is relevant in helping the get through the initial periods of high intensity and uncertainty. Through the benefits accrues from emergency psychology, individuals can be able to recover naturally from the events arising from an event. This is essential to help reduce the risk factors arising from occurrence of disaster (Australian Psychological Society, 2013). Categories of people affected by Emergencies For the concepts of emergency psychology to be properly instituted, it is important to understand the category of people affected by emergencies. It is worth noting that people in these different categories will experience the event differently and thus requires different approach to help them cope. The first category is the primary victims or survivors. This represents the individuals who have been directly impacted by the resulting damage and loss. They normally have suffered the loss either physically or in terms of loss of their assets. The next category is the emergency responders who include the firefighters, paramedics, police, Red Cross officials and the other emergency personnel. They experience the results of the disaster first hand. The other category of affected group includes the vicarious observers such as friends, relatives, and other people who get to see the tragedy on the media. Tools of Emergency psychology Eye movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) This refers to a psychosomatic methodological approach that was developed in 1987 and has been adopted as an effective method of dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. The tool has been recognized for its effects on dealing with emergency situation related disasters such as anxiety, depression, grief and bereavement. The tool allows the patient it alter their perspective through desensitization and cognitive restructuring. This allows the victims adopt more adaptive behaviors. The process involves moving the yes to face the left and the right. This rhythmic and alternating stimulation from the left to right hemispheres has been known to affect the process of storing of the data. Traumatic events are known to cause pathological neurons which tend to keep the events in their original anxiety-inducing form. The rhythmic eye movement used with psychological advice is helpful in helping restore the neuronal balance thereby helping individual deal information until the trauma has been resolved [Bor16]. Elements of emergency psychology An exploration of the elements of emergency psychology helps one understand on the relevance of practicing it. These elements are as a result if research on elements such as risk and resilience, field experience and expert consensus. The elements are classified on broad categories based on what they aim to promote. These include safety, calm, connectedness, and self-efficacy and group efficacy as well as instill hope. Emergency psychology aims to help affected individuals promote safety. This is achieved by eliminating or minimizing the levels of exposure to threat of harm. This helps people acquire basic needs and medical attention. This helps the affected individual attain physical and emotional comfort. In promoting calm, emergency psychology works to stabilize the people who have been overwhelmed and disoriented. To attain this, it is relevant to create an environment that alienates the stressful situations and exposure from signs, smells and sounds of emergency. In this there is need to identify people ready to talk about their emotions without forcing them to. It is worth noting that there is no benchmarking of the right or wrong way of feeling. It helps to be friendly and compassionate to individuals experience difficulty. In this element, the specialist aims at offering reassurance and information on stress and coping (Australian Psychological Society, 2013). The other element deals with promoting connectedness. This is achieved by helping people reach out to their friends and loved ones. In this, emergency psychology aims at keeping families together. This requires respecting the cultural norms that relate to gender, age, as well as family structure (Australian Psychological Society, 2013). There should also effort to link people facing an emergency with the available survives. The other element is on promoting self-efficacy. In this connection, emergency psychology tries to promote the belief within the people to understand that their action have impacts in determining the positive outcomes and a self-assurance that they can help themselves. Here, emergency psychology helps the victims prioritize their problems and solutions to these problems (Australian Psychological Society, 2013). The final element is related to giving the affected individuals hope (Australian Psychological Society, 2013). This is achieved by communicating expectancy to the individuals that they will recover. The presence of emergency psychologist is a positive indicator to the individual that there are concerned people willing to offer help. Therefore emergency psychology should be a means of reassuring people that the feelings that they are experiencing are normal. References Cla162: , (Clay, 2016), IAA10: , (IAASC, 2010), Bor16: , (Borghini, Garzia, Borghini, & Borghini, 2016), Webster, R., Norman, P., Goodacre, S., Thompson, A. R., & McEachan, R. R. C. (2014). Illness representations, psychological distress and non-cardiac chest pain in patients attending an emergency department. Psychology & health, 29(11), 1265-1282. Read More