PST 321 INSTRUCTOR'S NOTES - WEEK FOUR
STRESS AND STRESS MANAGEMENT
Welcome to week four.
Chapter 4 covers a subject that is very often overlooked in hostage
negotiations training, stress. I
can remember when I was a rookie cop. Back
then patrol officers had to work dispatch twice a month because of a
“manpower” shortage. While
working the streets as a patrolman had stressful moments, the most stress I
experienced was working dispatch. Which
is to say that 911 telecommunicators and dispatchers are no strangers to stress.
I am sure that you have been given training in how best to deal with
stress and how damaging it can be to you mentally as well as physically.
I’ve attended hundreds of hours of training in hostage negotiations
over the past several years. I can remember only one school discussing stress.
The interesting point about this chapter is the fact that it covers the
effects of stress on all individuals involved in an incident.
From the standpoint of actual
utilization in a hostage/barricade situation, the section covering the Yerkes-Dodson
Law is most applicable. However,
understanding stress in general and the part it plays in negotiations is very
important. The Yerkes-Dodson Law
section of the book brings out the lesser-known fact that there must be stress
in a situation in order to facilitate resolution. Many laymen think that the best thing to do in all hostage
situations is to calm everybody down. While
initially this may be true, many times the negotiator must manipulate stress in
order to motivate the subject. This addresses the importance of establishing a list of
“smilers” and “elevators” early on in the process.
I have had difficulties in certain circumstances in the past determining
smilers and elevators with certain personality types or because of communication
problems. If it is too early in
negotiations for you to gather the proper intelligence in order to manipulate
the stress of the situation by what you say, then sometimes you may need to use
the physical aspects of the situation as a motivating factor.
Having the SRT (SWAT) move around and make their presence known can turn
the stress up in a situation, or having them fall back can have the opposite
effect. I have had an officer
“accidentally” hit her siren in order to manipulate the stress of the
situation. I have also turned the
heat up in a house once in order to make the man barricaded in his bedroom less
relaxed. The bottom line is you
need to know where the stress level is and how to change it if the situation
dictates adjustment.
This is also true of the stress
level where you are working. You
must be aware of the stress level in your own working environment.
This is why most departments have a negotiation team instead of just a
loan negotiator. Having another
trained and knowledgeable negotiator near that can tell if you are getting too
“stressed out” or too involved is very important.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you must negotiate with
someone for a long period of time, make sure your co-workers know how to assist
you in this process. If it is not delineated in your policy how to deal with
hostage situations from the team angle, it should be.
Negotiation is a team effort.
It is also very important that you have a debriefing
following a very stressful situation. Page
160 gives examples of topics to cover in a negotiations debriefing.
Even if a situation does not involve negotiations, there should still be
a debriefing following any call that is stressful to extraordinary extremes.
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