ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the types of critical incidents and other stresses experienced by law enforcement officers. It focuses on the stressors most relevant to law enforcement personnel, particularly patrol officers. It outlines the practical interventions and psychotherapeutic strategies that have been found most useful for helping cops in distress. Police officers deal with the routine and the exceptional stresses of their work by a variety of situationally adaptive coping and defense mechanisms, such as repression, displacement, isolation of feelings, humor, and just generally toughing it out. The most tragic form of police casualty is suicide. A critical incident is defined as any event that has an unusually powerful, negative impact on law enforcement personnel. The concept of critical incident stress grew out of the larger tradition of trauma psychology. The chapter aims to the effectiveness of any therapeutic strategy in fostering resilient recovery determined by the timeliness, tone, style, and intent of the intervention.
