EMERGENCY
RESPONDER
COMMUNICATION SKILLS HANDBOOK
How
Your Words and Actions Affect People in Medical Distress
Brian Everard Walsh PhD JP(Ret)
Published by Walsh Seminars at Smashwords
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Copyright
2010, 2011
Walsh Seminars Ltd.
Box 963 Victoria BC V8W 2R9
Canada
www.WalshSeminars.com
Book website: www.ERcommSkills.com
Also available as a paperback ISBN 978-0-9866655-0-9
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Tips to Help You Integrate These Skills
Chapter
One - How the Brain Works
- Set up
for this Chapter
- How the Mind Processes Information
-
Psychological Firewall
- Trance
Chapter
Two – The Effect of Your
Words and Actions
- Set up for this
Chapter
- How Your Actions Affect an Injured Person
- How
Your Words Affect an Injured Person
- How Sensory Inputs Affect
an Injured Person
Chapter
Three - Supplementary
Information - “Nice to Know”
-
General Anesthesia and the Subconscious Mind
- Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs
- Communication Styles
- The Stages of
Grieving
- Language Patterns and Embedded Commands
Chapter
Four - Integrating these
Skills
- Review Exercises
- VAK
Self-Audit
What
we have done for ourselves alone dies with us;
what we have done
for others and the world remains and is immortal.
Albert
Pike
Think back to the beginning of your career. Do you remember the excitement you experienced when it came time to intervene in an emergency? Despite this initial excitement, if you are like most rescue personnel, these experiences have become increasingly less thrilling over time. Psychologists refer to this as “habituation” and it is completely normal. Habituation occurs when exposure to certain stimuli – in this case, life and death situations – causes us to view these incidents as commonplace.
It is important to remember that while you play a role in many of the emergencies in your community, the people you help are not typically habituated to crisis. This is a critical distinction because it underscores the paradox between your concept of routine and what others may consider a life-changing event.
You may be asking yourself why this little nugget of psychological insight is important to emergency services personnel. After all, chances are you are paid to lock up criminals, extinguish fires, or aid the injured. Technically, these courageous acts do not require conscious insight into the workings of the mind. Similarly, you do not need to have a stethoscope to check a patient’s pulse, an automobile to chase down a fleeing burglar, or a ladder truck to extinguish a two-story apartment fire… but wouldn’t these supplemental tools maximize the likelihood of your success?
The insights shared by Dr. Walsh are intended to augment your existing skills and enhance crucial people-helping competencies. Irrespective of our specialization, each of us is charged with interceding in crisis and restoring equilibrium to our respective communities. This process begins and ends with effective interpersonal interaction. The information contained within this Handbook will prove useful in several ways:
Enhance the likelihood of contributing to someone’s recovery.
In our basic training, many of us learned that persons with survivable injuries might actually die of shock. We often help people who are impacted by sudden and traumatic events. The unexpected nature of these events complicates the psychological impact suffered by survivors. Emergency personnel who calm and reassure victims will help them combat the perils of shock. This is one of the underlying themes espoused by Dr. Walsh and arguably a valuable professional tool.
Avoid unwarranted complaints.
Has a citizen ever mistaken your steely demeanor for indifference or apathy? Has well-intended humor ever come back to haunt you? Has your behavior ever been misinterpreted? Remember, we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions while others judge us by our actions. In order to effectively help others, we must learn to demonstrate behavior congruent with our intentions and consistent with the expectations of those in crisis. This is easier said than done! Such an alignment is only possible through keen self-awareness and a conscious understanding of many of the interpersonal dynamics covered within this book.
Increase support for your organization.
Perhaps now more than ever, as the public becomes increasingly – and rightfully – insistent on maximizing the value of their tax dollars, customer service is essential in our line of work. For example, research has shown that “specific and teachable communication behaviors” can be attributed to reducing malpractice claims. Why? Because we routinely interact with others during volatile times in their lives. These occasions merit the type of thoughtful communication highlighted in the coming pages.
In summary, the focus of this text is to help you understand how the human mind works following an emergency. Many of the people with whom you come into contact will be suffering from physical and psychological injury. Your awareness to this reality – as well as your recollection of core concepts covered in this text – will improve the quality of these experiences for everyone involved and increase your effectiveness as an emergency responder!
Jeffrey S. Katz,
Lieutenant, Boynton Beach Police Department
Doctoral
Student, Walden University USA
Tips
to Help You Integrate These Skills
Setting
up your brain for new information
This Handbook uses accelerated learning techniques. To get the most from this material, consider the following ideas.
A Table of Contents is a linear display of what to expect. That’s normal, but what’s much better is a graphical representation of that same information. Why? Since over 80% of your mental processing is visual, your brain loves pictures. The Table of Contents can be transformed into a Concept Map. Just the act of creating a map of a book’s contents sets up file folders in your mind where information goes when you actually read it.
Below, there is a concept map of this Handbook. You will see it again at the start of each chapter. Make your own Concept Map on a large piece of paper so that you can add notes to it as you read along.
Review
If
you’re the first to go down a hill in a toboggan after a snowfall,
it might be slow-going. Someone following in your track will go a bit
faster - and the next run will be even faster. It is the same
principle when learning new material. To have it integrated and
planted in your permanent memory for later recall, you need to
toboggan down that hill a few times. That is done through review. As
you explore this material, make notes on your own Concept Map so that
you can use it as a review source.
We have also provided a couple of review exercises at the end of the book. You can enhance your experience by doing these exercises with a colleague. As well, there are many other resources on our website.
Clear communication enhances safety for both the victim and the responder.
As a professional responding to a medical emergency, your ability to appropriately communicate with a casualty is as vital as your skill in rendering aid. Your words, your actions, and the surrounding environment can crucially influence the victim and the outcome.
Your experience has taught you that stress can disrupt clear thinking, scramble short-term memory, and effectively sabotage interpersonal communication.
Skills described in this book will apply in many emergencies. You will probably find them less useful for people disoriented by drugs. As always, use your own judgement.
If you are responsible for the care and welfare of others in any aspect of your work, these concepts and techniques are for you.
Although this book is written for police officers, paramedics, and firefighters, it can also be valuable for rescue workers.
Due to the importance of communication skills, more and more medical schools have, over the past decade, added this subject to their curricula.
These innovative techniques are learnable. This book is meant to complement and enhance the hard skills you use daily on the job.
Chapter One
How
the Brain Works
The foundation for the rest
of the book
This chapter is the foundation for Chapter 2.
Here we will explore how information gathered by the senses is processed by the brain. I will explain the differences between the Conscious and Subconscious Minds. This will help you understand why a specific event can cause a range of reactions.
It is really important to understand that when someone experiences sudden agitation or stress (accident, injury, trauma, or serious threat), this person immediately goes into an altered state of consciousness. In effect, this is a trance, not unlike being in a hypnotic or daydream state.
This condition is typically accompanied by several psychological and physiological manifestations that you may or may not be aware of.
This Handbook focuses on a casualty’s emotional and psychological states. Chapter 2 will give you some unique ways to communicate with those under your care.
How the Mind Processes Information
The best definition of the mind I know is by Professor Daniel J. Siegel MD of UCLA: The mind is a process that regulates the flow of energy and information
At this juncture, it is crucial for you to understand the difference between your Conscious and Subconscious Minds. This will help you master the skills offered in this Handbook.
Your awareness of your thoughts and experiences is your Conscious Mind, also called the Thinking Mind.
That just means you are attentive to what is going on in and around you. Although some of this activity involves you directly, some of it is just what you are observing in real time. It also includes what you are remembering, imagining, and visualizing.
You probably believe that as you see, hear, touch, smell, and taste something, you become aware of it immediately. In fact, that’s not so. When your senses take in new information, it is analyzed and evaluated through an array of complex emotional, perceptual, prejudicial, and defensive filters. Then, and only then, will some of that information become available for your conscious awareness and deliberate processing. This happens in a split second, but it does happen.
This is significant. Just read on and I’ll explain why as I lay the foundation for everything that you’ll learn in this book.
Let’s discuss the characteristics of the Conscious and Subconscious Minds.
If you were to place your feet flat on the floor, the area under your feet represents the power and potential of your Conscious Mind. The area in the rest of the room symbolizes the power and resources of your Subconscious Mind, and this is where the action is.
The Conscious Mind
Since most people are more familiar with their Conscious Mind, I’ll explain this first. Your Conscious Mind is what you are aware of right at this very moment. In reality, you can hold only one conscious thought at a time.
We are not born with
a Conscious Mind.
Our Conscious Mind begins to develop at about
the age of two and is entirely in place by the age of seven to ten.
Remember this bit of information as I will come back to it later.
There are four sets of attributes of the Conscious Mind.
1. Linear,
Logical, Analytical
The first set of characteristics of
the Conscious Mind is that it is Linear, Logical, and Analytical. It
works in details, thrives on orderliness, and is stubborn.