Traumatic Incident Reduction And Critical Incident Stress Management

An examination of Critical Incident Stress Management and Traumatic Incident Reduction and how cross-training could benefit facilitators of both CISM and TIR.

Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) explores a powerful regressive, repetitive, desensitization procedure becoming known in the therapeutic community as an extremely effective tool for use in the rapid resolution of virtually all trauma-related conditions. Replete with case histories and accounts of actual TIR sessions, this book provides a "camera-level" view of TIR by describing the experience of performing TIR.

This text was developed as a manual for those employed in the emergency services ESP, those who deal with victims of trauma in the workplace, work in school systems or acute psychiatric settings, provide assistance to ESP, or who are employed in other settings where persons may experience trauma. The book can also be used by mental health workers as they conduct workshops or provide debriefings where trauma has occured. Visit www.geraldlewis.com for more information.

Within this reference are synopses of several Traumatic Incident Reduction research projects from the early 1990s to today. Each article, in the researcher's own words, provides new insights into the effectiveness of TIR.

An examination of Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) techniques and how they can be applied to childhood trauma including abuse, domestic violence, and traumatic stress. Emphasis on combining cognitive and creative techniques for maximal effectiveness. This work is an anthology of work from several social workers who specialize in childhood trauma. Included are both practical techniques and detailed case histories.

Therapists and counsellors, in training and practice, will welcome this concise and practical introduction to the TIR approach for helping clients with PTSD and other human traumas. The book is application-based, providing a step-by-step guide from initial assessment to the last counselling session, illustrated with many examples from actual sessions. TIR is a person-centred, structured approach which can achieve symptom resolution in a brief course of counselling (often about 20 hours) respect and value the client's experience and needs work alongside a variety of therapy methods in a holistic way minimise the risk of re-traumatization The authors provide a review of the major theories of stress and trauma, and of other methods of working with clients that are most useful alongside the TIR approach, an approach that is useful for a wide range of 'normal life' traumas, not just PTSD.

Most common approaches to post-traumatic stress reduction fall into two categories: coping techniques and cathartic techniques. Some therapists give their clients specific in vivo (literally ?in life?) methods for counteracting or coping with the symptoms of PTSD?tools to permit their clients to learn to adapt to, to learn to live with, their PTSD condition. Others encourage their clients to release their feelings, to have a catharsis. The idea is that past traumas generate a certain amount of negative energy or ?emotional charge?, and the therapist?s task is to work with the client to release this charge so that it does not manifest itself as aberrant behavior, negative feelings and attitudes, or psychosomatic conditions. Coping methods and cathartic techniques may help a person to feel better temporarily, but they don?t resolve trauma so that it can no longer exert a negative effect on the client. Clients feel better temporarily after coping or having a catharsis, but the basic charge remains in place, and shortly thereafter they need more therapy. The Need for Anamnesis (recovery of repressed memories) Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) operates on the principle that a permanent resolution of a case requires anamnesis (recovery of repressed memories), rather than mere catharsis or coping. To understand why clients have to achieve an anamnesis in order to resolve past trauma, we must take a person-centered viewpoint, i.e., the client?s viewpoint and, from that viewpoint, explain what makes trauma traumatic.

Critical incident stress management (CISM) is now a well-established method in crisis intervention, and one that is clearly needed within aviation. However, there are many peculiarities in this branch of CISM which require thorough consideration. People working in high-reliability environments need to be sensitive to others' reactions to critical stress. They are the normal reactions of normal people in abnormal situations. However, to ensure this a proper programme must be put in place, based on a scientific and standardized approach. This book describes the various methods and elements of the CISM model, as well as their interventions. It also investigates the benefits of CISM on the individual level and on an organisational strategic level. It details CISM training and courses, and features a case study based on the Überlingen accident of 2002. Critical Incident Stress Management in Aviation will be of direct relevance to human factors experts, safety managers, ATCOs and air navigation service providers, though there is also much that will be of interest to aviation physicians, psychologists and airport/airline managers.