“Jane is a ‘star employee’. She is always on time for work and the quality of her work is very high. She is always willing to ‘go the extra mile’ and adored by everybody in the office. Soon she is appointed as a supervisor and well on her way to senior management.
One evening after returning home from dinner with her fiancé they are attacked by armed assailants. He is shot and killed right in front of her eyes and she is assaulted for trying to safe him. All her friends and colleagues are shocked about what happened. She is told to take some time off from work in order to heal – ‘time will heal all wounds’.
After a few months she still has difficulty sleeping and becomes very agitated. She is always tired at work and starts avoiding people, distrusting everybody. The quality of her work starts to deteriorate and other people have to take over her responsibilities. She is not the person she used to be …”
Do you know somebody like Jane?
Traumatic experiences shake the foundations of our beliefs about safety and shatter our assumptions about trust. Because it is so far outside what we would expect, these events provoke reactions that feel strange and ‘crazy’. These reactions however are all normal under the abnormal circumstances of the traumatic event.
Traumatic events create terror; feelings of vulnerability, helplessness, loss of control, uncertainty and a threat to life cause this state of terror. Often threats of violence are used to induce terror. Terror is associated with human induced traumas; personal attacks, rape, hostage taking, and terrorism to name only a few. Violent crimes, in particular, affect millions of people each year. One of the major after-effects of trauma is posttraumatic stress. Posttraumatic stress is an illness that can cause acute misery not only for the sufferer, but also for those around him/her.
According to Matsakis trauma can be described as: “True trauma, in the technical sense of the word, refers to situations in which you are rendered powerless and great danger is involved”. Trauma in this sense refers to events involving death and injury or the possibility of death and injury. These events must be unusual and out of the ordinary, not events that are part of the normal course of life. Trauma also encompasses events of such intensity or magnitude of horror that it would overtax any human being’s ability to cope.
Trauma means wounding; just as the body can be traumatized by means of physical injury, for instance accidents, assault, etc, so can the psyche. On the psychological and mental levels, trauma refers to the wounding of your emotions, your spirit, your will to live, your beliefs about yourself and the world, your dignity, and your sense of security. During trauma you are subject to a process called depersonalization. Depersonalization refers to the stripping away of your personhood, your individuality and your humanity. The sense of being depersonalized or dehumanized is especially strong when the injuries sustained or the wounding and death witnessed seem senseless or preventable.
What can you as an employer do to assist people dealing with a traumatic experience?
- Do not just send the person on leave to “deal with the trauma”. Rather arrange professional help for the person. Time may heal physical wounds, but most of the times the person will need assistance to deal with the emotional wounds.
- A good principle to follow is to arrange debriefing within the first 24 to 72 hours after the incident. It is wise to follow debriefing by more formal counselling should there be a need.
- Don’t only speak to the person to stimulate your curiosity. Offer genuine support to the person. Ignorance can lead to secondary trauma.
- Do not treat the person as a victim but rather a survivor.
- Given the unnatural circumstances of trauma be prepared that the person might display unusual behaviour. It is normal for him/her to behave differently.
- Have crime awareness sessions as part of your Employee Wellness Programme. None of us wants to hear about crime all the time, but it is wise to know what can be done to avoid becoming a victim of crime.
Accredited Workshop: Gerhard Schoeman – Industrial Psychologist