The experience of trauma in forest firefighters through indirect exposure.

Jaime Senabre

Director of SINIF.
University of Alicante, Spain.

One of the characteristics of work in the extinction of forest fires is the exposure of forest firefighters to situations that require a great demand of personal resources, both physical and psychological, which is an important source of stress for these professionals. On occasion, forest firefighters face critical situations that can be a traumatic experience capable of generating deep discomfort, both individually and collectively. This type of negative events can cause invisible emotional scars, difficult to erase and complex approach. Now, we know that an inadequate management of empathy towards victims can facilitate the initiation of a process of secondary traumatic stress in firefighters, due to emotional contagion. This paper deals with indirect exposure to trauma through the indiscriminate consumption of images and traumatic stories offered by the media (press and TV) or social networks. Our research team was able to observe how Forest Fire Brigades, which participated as Control Group in a study on emotional impact in forest firefighters after a forest fire in Spain with fatalities, manifested post-traumatic symptomatology, almost at the same level as those firefighters who participated directly in the works of extinction of that fire. The conclusions indicate that indirect exposure to trauma, uncontrolled empathy towards victims, and social or professional identification with victims may have (both in emergency professionals and in the general population) emotional consequences, similar to those produced in the direct victims of the fire, as well as a latent predisposition to manifest maladaptive behaviors before similar situations or that remember the lived experience.Finally, guidelines are offered on "what to do" to avoid emotional contagion due to indirect exposure to trauma, such as, for example, a dosed and unrepeated consumption of news and images with a heavy dramatic load.

 ScientificTracks Abstracts: J Psychol Psychother

 Citation: Senabre, J. (2018). The experience of trauma in forest firefighters through indirect exposure. Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy. ISSN: 2161-0487. Volume 8. World Summit on Stress, Mindfulness and Philosophy. Boston, USA. Book of abstracts. pp52. DOI: 10.4172/2161-0487-C4-032

World Summit on Stress, Mindfulness and Philosophy. August 27-28, 2018 | Boston, USA.

Violence in fire stations: A study with Spanish firefighters.

Jaime Senabre Director of SINIF.

University of Alicante, Spain.

Abstract

Violence of any kind between humans is nothing new. In the last decades a great interest has been awakened by the study of violence developed in work environments. Variety, temporality and frequency are necessary criteria for diagnosis. Factors related to the organization of work and the work environment could facilitate this type of behavior. Likewise, personality factors of the aggressor and the victim could play a role in the whole process, as well as the type of response of the aggrieved person. For the analysis, three questionnaires will be used, one of personality factors, the LIPT-60, on perception and strategies of workplace harassment and a Spanish adaptation of the MBI conducted by Senabre (2005) for fire services. The sample is composed of 34 firefighters, of which 20 are forest firefighters. Preliminary results suggest that 8.82% of the participants in the study reported that they had the perception that they were being harassed in their work, compared to 91.17% who don???t think that they have this work situation. Affability, age and emotional fatigue do seem to play their role in different ways. Younger professionals seem to be the most vulnerable to suffer this type of behavior, as well as those who are more emotionally exhausted. However, the more affable firefighters, that is, those who are more pleasant and friendly can be less affected by this type of aggression. Another important fact that emerges from this research is that there is a clear trend in these groups to deny any behavior of harassment, so the figures could be higher. Thus, we can conclude that workplace harassment is present in the fire services, being the strategies of job loss of prestige and intimidation manifested the most prevalent in the sample studied, followed by the obstruction of progress. The loss of prestige in the workplace is more frequently used by forest firefighters and the intimidation manifested among structural firefighters. According to the data provided in this study, we can notice that violent behaviors and harassment occur in fire stations, especially when working conditions are more precarious.

Citation: Senabre, Jaime (2018). Violence in fire stations: A study with Spanish firefighters. In Journal of Child & Adolescent Behaviour, Vol. 6, pp 43. DOI: 10.4172/2375-4494-C1-006

Journal of Child & Adolescent Behaviour | ISSN: 2375-4494 | Volume 6

30^th World Psychiatrists and Psychologists Meet. Osaka, Japan.