Incident in Norway leaves a legacy of trauma and stress
While the world’s media focuses on the shocking activities of Anders Behring Breivik and their effect on the people who died, those who escaped, their families and friends, little is being said about the people who were directly involved in responding to the incident and rebuilding the country’s reputation: paramedics, police, decision-makers and leaders including Norway’s prime minister Jens Stoltenberg and the King and Queen of Norway.
What has been said has been extremely critical – specifically of the time it took the Norwegian police to arrive on Utoya, the island where so many young people were killed. Anger is a natural response to bereavement and, in dramatic and unpredictable incidents such as this, it is expected. It is essential, therefore, to be prepared for it – and to cope with that anger while you are also facing a trauma (finding and dealing with the bodies as well supporting and rescuing the distressed people who survived).
The same is true of the paramedics who were called to the scene. Their job means they are constantly under stress – ready to race to someone whose life is at risk, applying knowledge accurately at speed, making quick judgements, giving life-saving advice and treatment. And they face traumas day in and day out as they deal with the sad and tragic outcomes of their work.
Police and paramedics receive intensive training that includes building their resilience so they are better able to cope with stress and trauma. But it is impossible to predict whether an incident will prove too much to cope with and, if a person does reach their coping capacity, when it will happen. Offering support to people in stressful or trauma-filled jobs will reduce the time they are absent from work, help them return to peak performance, and rebuild their resilience.
People who cannot face returning to work might also need help to rebuild their confidence and self-esteem so they can find other work or cope with a life without work.
In addition, some people might be able to cope with the effects of stress and trauma while at work – but find that it is affecting their personal relationships and self-esteem or causing anxiety, addictions, eating disorders. And that could, in turn, begin to have an impact on their performance at work.
As for the prime minister and the king and queen, all leadership roles involve dealing with stress. Making decisions that impact on others, responding to crises, ordering actions or inaction, taking the responsibility and the flak – all require resilience. And they need to make these difficult decisions while remaining outwardly calm and in control. People in positions of authority at the top of organisations also need to build resilience so they can manage their stress, spot stress in others and minimise its impact on the business by offering training or support.
Finally, it isn’t only people who are connected with a traumatic incident who can be affected by it. People not there at the time might identify with aspects of it – or feel more vulnerable as a result. It is important for businesses to be aware of the potential psychological effects on others – and to offer them support and resilience training.
If you or your staff need to manage stress and cope with trauma, or are under-performing or absent because of the effects of stress or trauma, do consider providing courses that build resilience or professional psychotherapeutic support to bring them back up to peak performance. We provide training, coaching, mentoring and counselling specifically geared to people at work who face stress and trauma – including EMDR which is recognised by NICE as particularly effective for treating trauma. Do get in touch.
29/07/2011 | Posted in Trauma, Stress, Resilience, Presenteeism, Performance, Leadership, Counselling, Confidence, Coaching, Absenteeism,
Anger management counselling - to help individuals and businesses succeed
Picture the scene: it’s your regular office meeting; the agenda includes sensitive issues, discussions will be detailed and probably contentious; someone will blow their top. If they don’t explode with anger during the meeting, there are likely to be hot-headed discussions afterwards, whether between two protagonists or by drawing more people in support of, or against, the proposition.
Some of your colleagues will retreat, avoiding conflict at all costs; others will give in to unreasonable demands, for a quiet life; sparks will fly between some; sarcasm will spill from the quicker-witted or sharper-tongued; some might resort to swearing or shouting; doors might slam, desks might be thumped – and so might people; a few will shrug or laugh it off; one or two will deftly defuse the tricky situation using calm, diplomatic words and finding amicable solutions.
The effect of anger – and the effect of anticipating it – can have far-reaching ramifications, seriously affecting people at work, reducing their morale, performance and effectiveness (driving them home or to drink or drugs, or into eating disorders or addiction) and affecting the success of the business.
How do you manage anger, whether you are the one who is dishing it out or if you are on the receiving end? What’s the best course of action in either case – and how do you achieve it?
Anger has its ramifications but it would be wrong to see it only as a cause. It is a symptom. There is always a reason why anger is triggered – long-standing disappointments or resentments; frustration; grief (of a person, or loss of a job or status); stress (from having too much to do, or not enough); being held back or unsupported; promotion to an unmanageable level; unachievable demands. It can also be a side-effect of drugs, or of medical or physical conditions such as depression, pre-menstrual tension or the menopause. Exploring the route that leads to the root of its cause is essential if it is to be managed successfully to reduce its impact on the performance of individuals and teams as well as on the organisation and business.
Anger management counselling is increasingly used at work – one to one and in groups, for individuals or teams. Exploring the reasons for the anger, helping individuals deal with their angry feelings in a constructive, rather than destructive, way, or showing how anger can be useful when it is channelled towards a positive outcome can help reduce the occurrence of anger and its effects.
Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) can be a particularly effective form of anger management counselling. It helps individuals recognise the thoughts that trigger the anger and, because it is a practical therapy, learn to change their thinking patterns and therefore their behaviour. It might also be necessary to use other therapies – providing what is best for each individual or depending on the situation.
If you would like advice on how to minimise the effects of anger in your workplace, do get in touch. We will help you identify what is needed, for individuals and for the business; advise you on practices and policies to adopt for the longer term; and provide the most appropriate professional support and guidance for each individual or situation.
16/05/2011 | Posted in Absenteeism, Conflict, Counselling, Morale, Performance, Stress, Success,
Company alternative treatment plans
Many businesses are coming round to the idea of alternative treatments and recognising that, although they do not replace conventional medicine or seeing your GP, they can have beneficial effects and are useful in many aspects of health and wellbeing.
Over the last few years, employers have started to add healthcare programmes to their benefits packages - and many include alternative treatments as standard policy. Employers benefit from healthier, happy employee and a lower sickness or absence rate. Employees gain access to alternative treatments, or faster health treatments, than they may otherwise have done.
One such company is Avanta which specialises in providing office space to small and medium sized businesses. It has introduced a range of improvements to its staff benefits since it reviewed its entire benefits structure earlier this year.
Amongst new benefits such as salary sacrifice pension contributions, increases to maternity and paternity pay, and medical insurance, is an innovative offer to help its staff to quit smoking. For any member of staff who wants to stop smoking, Avanta is offering an incentive to reimburse them on aids to quitting, and this includes any hypnotherapy treatment.
Not all companies recognise alternative therapies in programmes such as this, but those that do know it is worthwhile - not least because hypnotherapy, for example, is recognised by the NHS as being a valuable aid for treating people with addictions or habits or who find it hard to cope with stress.
25/10/2010 | Posted in Policy development, Absenteeism,
Using alcohol as a prop
So, Tony Blair has published his memoirs and confessed that he fell into the habit of using alcohol to support him through the stresses of being prime minister. The revelation immediately generated a debate, among journalists and the public, about whether this was anything worth writing about – many of us think nothing of drinking a whisky or G&T followed by a couple of glasses (or half a bottle) of wine each evening.
As Mr Blair said, he was drinking at the upper limit of what is considered appropriate but an interesting question is whether he underestimated his alcohol intake – just as many of us do when asked by our GP or in surveys.
The difficulty, in a nation where drinking is so much a part of our culture, is that it is very easy to kid ourselves that we can handle what we drink and that what we drink is not too much. I am not implying that Tony Blair was pulling the wool over our eyes or his own; he defined his alcohol intake as “not excessively excessive” and we have to take that at face value.
But what made his confession so interesting was that he recognised his drinking had become a prop. For many, this objectivity is not possible. We drink (or turn to drugs, eating, self-harm, bullying) to cover up, disguise or distract us from difficult emotions (or workplace struggles such as stress or an overbearing corporate culture) – without being aware that that is what we are doing.
The first stage on the road to recovery is to discover and unravel those feelings so we can learn how to manage and respond to them. And many of us need not a quick-fix prop but professional support to plan the best route for the journey through our complicated, 21st century lives - building resilience so we can manage without turning to career-limiting coping strategies.
03/09/2010 | Posted in Stress, Resilience, Leadership, Bullying,
We also provide Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), Counselling, Eye movement desensitisation reprocessing (EMDR), Emotional freedom technique (EFT), Existential counselling, Gestalt therapy, Humanistic psychotherapy, Hypno-birthing, Hypnotherapy, Integrative counselling, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Person-centred counselling, Psychotherapy, Psychoanalytical therapy, Psychodynamic therapy and Sensorimotor psychotherapy services.
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