- Personal trauma in the line of duty

"When I asked the driver to leave the market, he looked fierce and threatened to kill me if I issued a fixed penalty ticket to him . . . he kept swearing and pushed me against his car . . . as I finally produced the ticket, he looked extremely angry . . . he got in and drove towards me . . . there were a lot of people, I could only scream and tell them to run . . . I could not believe this could happen. The scene keeps coming to my mind in recent months. But people think I am joking" - a Traffic Warden.

PSYNET has already introduced the concept of 'critical incidents', and some police 'trauma' including shooting, mass rescue and death/serious injury of a colleague. While these are the most prominent stress sources reported in various studies, police trauma is something more than that.

In this issue, we talk about some other line-of-duty trauma, from which some officers or even civilian staff may suffer while executing their duties. This kind of trauma includes handling dead bodies, dealing with crime victims, physical assault or threats, witnessing violent crime, or seeing a fatal traffic accident scene.

An incident does not have to inflict serious physical harm to an officer to be traumatic. As long as it poses a strong physical or psychological menace, it can be a blow to the mental well-being of the officer, especially when it happens without anticipation.

After such an event, the officer may experience changes. It is not rare to see traumatised officers having drastic changes in their perception of themselves, their values and belief in their work. Their self-concepts are sometimes jeopardised. While officers may believe in a 'just world', thinking such injustice or misfortune will not happen to them, their beliefs may be critically challenged.

Officers may be subject to a lot of queries, investigations or legal proceedings after such incidents. Sometimes they feel isolated in the process and that no one trusts them, resulting in grievances and alienation. The officer may also be very ambivalent in disclosing those 'bizarre' experiences like intense fear, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks of threatening images, and avoidance of the scene, to their colleagues, family and friends.

This leads to further misunderstandings and loneliness. In some extreme cases, it can cause prolonged, severe stress symptoms, impairment of work performance and broken relationships, which may even lead to suicide if the officer suffers other stress and cannot cope.

Do these reactions sound familiar to you? We will talk about different kinds of coping and treatment in later issues.

Seek advice and help from the Psychological Services Group: PHQ, Hong Kong Island and Marine: 2866-6206 (5/F, 111 Leighton Road, Causeway Bay); Kowloon and the New Territories: 2735-3739 (22/F, Ocean Building, 80 Shanghai Street, Kowloon).





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