FIREPSYCHE: TECHNIQUES TO RELIEVE ON-THE-JOB STRESS
Firefighters face stressful situations as an everyday part of their job. They frequently must deal with deaths of fellow firefighters, injuries, child deaths, and mass casualties as well as face the frightening prospect of being trapped in a burning building. In fact, emergency work has been described as “90 percent boredom and routine, accentuated by 10 percent sheer panic.”
As a result of increased awareness of the traumas associated with firefighting, concepts such as critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) have been developed. Such concepts are designed to help emergency responders cope with the traumatic effects of their work and prevent or minimize severe or disabling psychological responses to the devastating experiences they encounter.
Approaches such as OSD are critical to the psychological health of firefighters, but such approaches most often are implemented after trauma has occurred. Therefore, other approaches have been introduced to help promote psychological well-being, enhance stress management, and minimize burnout. These include using structured stress management programs and other life-style improvement strategies such as exercise, relaxing hobbies, and family support.”⅝
Such approaches, however, do not address an important area: training firefighters to manage stress during the performance of their duties. Although the need for operational sectoring for rest/rotation, shelter, rehydration, food, and stimulation reduction is receiving greater attention at more and more incidents, the emphasis has been on physical rejuvenation and not on psychological preparation.1 Techniques to prepare firefighters to manage the acute stress of response and to enhance performance clearly are needed.
Experience, conversations, and informal surveys suggest that firefighters believe that successful response is about 60 percent dependent on physical skills and 40 percent dependent on psychological factors. Yet most firefighting training and drills are skills-oriented; psychological factors are virtually ignored.
Performance under pressure is Strived for in other professions as well. Some of them use techniques to train individuals to perform better in high-stress situations. Sports is a good example. Athletes perform under pressure and experience the impact of psychological factors as positive or negative influences. In fact, athletes and coaches often estimate that successful sports performance is 90 percent dependent on mental discipline.’ The ability to avoid “choking” in clutch situations is the hallmark of an effective athlete.
The sports analogy is appropriate to firefighting since both require skills and physical training, stamina, and ability. In sports much attention has been given to psychological techniques that enhance performance. A substantial portion of “sports psychology” training is designed to prepare athletes to “maintain their focus” — that is, perform successfully under stress.
FIREPSYCHE
Some psychological skills training techniques have been applied to firelighting to improve performance, especially in high-stress rescue situations such as confined-space rescue. Incorporating psychological techniques—called stress-inoculation training—into cardiopulmonary resuscitation education has improved knowledge retention related to skills and increased willingness to respond and use that knowledge.
THE FIREPSYCHE PROGRAM
The Firepsyche program offered by the Public Safety Institute at Harrisburg Area Community College trains firefighters in psychological techniques to improve technical performance, build confidence, and reduce stress. Developed by a consulting psychologist and experienced firefighting professionals, the program is based on sports psychology performance-enhancement skills adapted to and modified for fire response situations.
Initially presented as a test program to a volunteer fire department, Firepsyche received such a positive response from department members that the program was incorporated into the Public Safety Institute’s Firefighter I certification program. The program currently occupies 10 hours of instructional time in the five-week program.
The training includes basic concepts and specific performance enhancement skills. At the program’s inception, each firefighter completes a Psychological Performance Profile designed to assess skill abilities in the various areas of psychological performance techniques.
Basic concepts. This segment begins with a discussion of the role of concentration in performance. Topics covered include how stress affects concentration, how to minimize distraction on the fireground, and how to acquire or improve task-oriented concentration on the scene.
The relationship of physical arousal to the quality of performance is described. The concept of an optimal arousal state (or ideal state) for maximal performance and the means by which the state can be defined for each firefighter are introduced. Techniques are discussed for getting psyched-up (increasing arousal) as well as for remaining calm or becoming relaxed (decreasing arousal) in response situations.
Fear and high-risk performance identifies appropriate and inappropriate fear and the negative and positiveaspects of fear. Techniques for managing fear also are discussed.
Performance and response stress, the final basic concept discussed, explores the nature of response stress, the characteristics of anxious responders, and some methods for managing the response stress.
Specific performance-enhancement techniques. Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) and other performance-enhancement techniques are taught. Although they may be somewhat familiar to firefighters who have attended general life stress management programs, the PMR strategies were adapted for improved performance in response. Techniques are described for reducing stress, preventing injuries, rehabilitating and recuperating on the scene, and pacing yourself to manage energy and conserve oxygen in life-threatening situations.
Mental imagery techniques are designed for practicing and improving specific firefighting skills and analyzing and correcting errors in their execution. Mechanisms for preparing for unexpected conditions and increasing general levels of confidence are covered, as is how to use imagery for enhancing performance.
Self-talk — how you experience thinking (as if you are talking to yourself)-has a lot to do with how you respond to a situation. This segment analyzes the relationship between self-talk and performance, especially the performance-inhibiting effects of negative thinking. The rationale and specific means for promoting performance-enhancing selftalk are discussed.
Other techniques in this section include breathing techniques, especially diaphragmatic breathing that produces deep breaths, increased oxygenation, and decreased sensations of anxiety; negative thought stopping—a psychological technique that helps clear negative, excessively critical, and irrelevant thoughts that interfere with the ability to focus and perform; and affirmations—positive statements about yourself related to professional performance or personal issues that serve to enhance confidence and promote self-trust to improve performance.
RESPONSE TO THE PROGRAM
Response to the training generally has been positive. Experience suggests that training modules that address specific stressful situations should be developed. Training ideally will move from the classroom to the field and be incorporated into operations. drills, and so on to improve psychological skills.
Anticipated benefits of the program include improvement in the quality of life for firefighters, as they worry less about performance in emergency situations; a possible reduction in employee turnover and burnout caused by negative psychological reactions to high-stress calls; and increased awareness and acceptance of the important psychological components of firefighting, which hopefully will make firefighters more open to recognizing stress reactions in themselves and their peers and will motivate them to seek help in overcoming that stress.
Endnotes
Leisner, K: “The EMS Addict: Chemically Dependent Providers.” Emergency Medical Services. 1988; 17; 12-16.
- Mitchell, J.: “High Tension: Keeping Stress Under Control.” Firehouse. Sept. 1984; 86-89.
- NFPA 1500: Standard on Eire Department Occupational Safety and Health Programs. National Eire Protection Association: Annual Meeting Cincinnati, OI1. 1987.
- Mitchell, J, Bray, G. Emergency Services Stress (Brady Publishers Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1990).
- Tutko, T., Tosi, U. Sportspsyching. (J.P. Tardier, Los Angeles, 1976).
- Gill. 1).: Psychological Dynamics of Sport. Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 1986.
- May. J., Asken, M.: Sport Psychology: The Psychological Health of the Athlete. (PMA Publishers New York, NY 1987).
- Brown, M : “The Psychological Effects of Confined Space on Rescue Personnel and Accepted Control Techniques.” Eire Services Board, Commonwealth of Virginia.
- Starr. I. : “Stress inoculation Training Applied to Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation.” Paper presented at the 95th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. New York. NY. 1987.
