Stress
11/02/14 04:32
Back in 1977, I was an intern at the Wholistic Health Care Center in Hinsdale, Illinois. Among my duties at the center, I began to teach Stress Management courses. I trained with Bill Peterson, who had developed the curriculum and outline for the courses. Most of the courses were offered through churches and our clients were people who lived in the western suburbs of Chicago. Many of them worked in downtown Chicago and I met several who were traders on the Chicago Board of Trade. They had fast-paced and quite stressful jobs.
We taught about the physiological and psychological effects of stress, the process of grief, coping skills, and other topics. Much of our work was based on previous work by Granger Westberg, who was the founder of the Wholistic Health Care Centers.
So I have been teaching stress management courses for 37 years. I have taught courses in at least six different states and in a wide variety of settings.
The process of teaching such courses involves research and continuing education because there is continuing research into the nature of stress. Among the interesting frontiers in stress research is more information about how the central nervous system works and the role of nerves in communicating stress reactions.
It was primarily because I am familiar with the topic and preparing a course would be less work for me than offering a course on other topics that I proposed teaching a course in stress management to officers of the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office when the training lieutenant asked the chaplains what courses we might be able to offer as continuing education for the officers.
The topic was of interest to the Sheriff and to the training officials of the office, so I worked with the other chaplains to develop an outline and a two-hour stress management workshop for the department. We offered the course for the first time tomorrow. I’ll be teaching again this morning and a couple more times in the next week as the chaplains offer the course to seven different groups of officers.
As is often the case when one is working with something that is familiar, it is easy to forget that some of this information can be new to the people who are taking the class. Stress management is built into pastoral training and required as a part of clinical pastoral education and other parts of a regular pastoral career.
I guess it would be fair to say that our jobs are stressful and that stress management is important. But it doesn’t seem to me that our profession is any more stressful than law enforcement. I can think of dozens of stressors that are unique to officers.
Officers face threats to their own health and safety on a fairly regular basis. They have jobs that involve a certain amount of boredom, which can be suddenly interrupted with a need for complete alertness and a burst of energy. They are responsible for the lives and safety of others. They are exposed to distress and angry outbursts on a regular basis. They have to control their own emotions in order to do their jobs. They deal with a gun both on and off duty. Their work is often broken up with a case opened and then the follow-up provided by another. They rarely see a single case through from beginning to end. Law enforcement officers have a unique blend of expectations. Part of their work is organized like the military. Part of their work demands that they behave like professionals.
The list of stressors that are unique to police and other law enforcement officers could go on and on.
So it surprises me that there is so little in terms of stress management training for law enforcement officers. Our Sheriff’s office may be unique, but I don’t think that this is the case. The bottom line is that we haven’t been doing a good job of training our officers to deal with the stress of their work.
And the price for not managing stress well is high. The department probably is experiencing higher turnover than would be the case if officers were trained in stress management. There is likely a higher rate of stress-related illness and perhaps even stress-related disability among members of the Sheriff’s office than the general public. Certainly the rate of illness and disability is greater than it would be if all officers were adequately trained and practiced in stress management techniques.
There are many parts of the work of a professional law enforcement officer that demand discipline and training. But if we are sending officer out without the basics of stress management, we are sending them into harm’s way without all of the protection that we are able to offer.
I am interested to see how the week of training goes. And I am interested to see how this training might be incorporated into the Sheriff’s Office so that it is made available to all officers both as initial and as recurrent training. It just makes sense to have law enforcement officers well trained in ways to remain healthy and take care of themselves.
This has gotten me to thinking about the need for stress management among the general public. I quit offering stress management courses as a part of church life several years ago because I was of the impression that people were receiving such training through their workplaces and that perhaps we had offered the course enough. Perhaps, however, it is time to offer a course through the church. The church has the ability to form support groups that reach beyond specific professions. Having people in different professions as a part of one’s network of support is important in managing stress. The church is uniquely cross generational and involves people from all walks of life.
It is worth considering. But first I need to get through the demands of this week with the extra work that I am doing with the Sheriff’s office. Perhaps I need to pay attention to my stress levels and my coping skills as I navigate through the busy times of the next few days.
We taught about the physiological and psychological effects of stress, the process of grief, coping skills, and other topics. Much of our work was based on previous work by Granger Westberg, who was the founder of the Wholistic Health Care Centers.
So I have been teaching stress management courses for 37 years. I have taught courses in at least six different states and in a wide variety of settings.
The process of teaching such courses involves research and continuing education because there is continuing research into the nature of stress. Among the interesting frontiers in stress research is more information about how the central nervous system works and the role of nerves in communicating stress reactions.
It was primarily because I am familiar with the topic and preparing a course would be less work for me than offering a course on other topics that I proposed teaching a course in stress management to officers of the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office when the training lieutenant asked the chaplains what courses we might be able to offer as continuing education for the officers.
The topic was of interest to the Sheriff and to the training officials of the office, so I worked with the other chaplains to develop an outline and a two-hour stress management workshop for the department. We offered the course for the first time tomorrow. I’ll be teaching again this morning and a couple more times in the next week as the chaplains offer the course to seven different groups of officers.
As is often the case when one is working with something that is familiar, it is easy to forget that some of this information can be new to the people who are taking the class. Stress management is built into pastoral training and required as a part of clinical pastoral education and other parts of a regular pastoral career.
I guess it would be fair to say that our jobs are stressful and that stress management is important. But it doesn’t seem to me that our profession is any more stressful than law enforcement. I can think of dozens of stressors that are unique to officers.
Officers face threats to their own health and safety on a fairly regular basis. They have jobs that involve a certain amount of boredom, which can be suddenly interrupted with a need for complete alertness and a burst of energy. They are responsible for the lives and safety of others. They are exposed to distress and angry outbursts on a regular basis. They have to control their own emotions in order to do their jobs. They deal with a gun both on and off duty. Their work is often broken up with a case opened and then the follow-up provided by another. They rarely see a single case through from beginning to end. Law enforcement officers have a unique blend of expectations. Part of their work is organized like the military. Part of their work demands that they behave like professionals.
The list of stressors that are unique to police and other law enforcement officers could go on and on.
So it surprises me that there is so little in terms of stress management training for law enforcement officers. Our Sheriff’s office may be unique, but I don’t think that this is the case. The bottom line is that we haven’t been doing a good job of training our officers to deal with the stress of their work.
And the price for not managing stress well is high. The department probably is experiencing higher turnover than would be the case if officers were trained in stress management. There is likely a higher rate of stress-related illness and perhaps even stress-related disability among members of the Sheriff’s office than the general public. Certainly the rate of illness and disability is greater than it would be if all officers were adequately trained and practiced in stress management techniques.
There are many parts of the work of a professional law enforcement officer that demand discipline and training. But if we are sending officer out without the basics of stress management, we are sending them into harm’s way without all of the protection that we are able to offer.
I am interested to see how the week of training goes. And I am interested to see how this training might be incorporated into the Sheriff’s Office so that it is made available to all officers both as initial and as recurrent training. It just makes sense to have law enforcement officers well trained in ways to remain healthy and take care of themselves.
This has gotten me to thinking about the need for stress management among the general public. I quit offering stress management courses as a part of church life several years ago because I was of the impression that people were receiving such training through their workplaces and that perhaps we had offered the course enough. Perhaps, however, it is time to offer a course through the church. The church has the ability to form support groups that reach beyond specific professions. Having people in different professions as a part of one’s network of support is important in managing stress. The church is uniquely cross generational and involves people from all walks of life.
It is worth considering. But first I need to get through the demands of this week with the extra work that I am doing with the Sheriff’s office. Perhaps I need to pay attention to my stress levels and my coping skills as I navigate through the busy times of the next few days.