Article by Martine Doriac - http://bit.ly/1SvdnDa
The psychologists and consultants of the Lact firm carried out more than 400 interviews after the attacks in Paris. Claude de Scorraille is an occupational psychologist, president and co-founder of this firm specializing in the management of acute and post-traumatic stress situations. She deciphers, for La Gazette, what happens after a traumatic event that can affect staff, colleagues or collaborators.
The psychologists and consultants of the firm Lact base their method on the systemic approach of Palo Alto. They spoke at the Best trade fair on psycho-social risks, on January 19, 2016, at the Palais Brongniart in Paris. be consulted on the website www.lact.fr.
How to overcome a traumatic event?
The more we have a reassuring framework allowing us to rest from the violence we have experienced, the better we will be able to recover from it. For some people, the reassuring framework consists of quickly finding their work context, which corresponds to a form of normality.
91% of people who have experienced traumatic events manage to manage these situations, because human beings are programmed to be resilient in the face of hardship. Only 9% have difficulties. For these more vulnerable people, the environment plays an important role, allowing them to rest, to calm down and find themselves. A violent event is a huge mess, a disturbing new reality. Those affected need rest. They find themselves in a shaken reality, after having been in an extreme experience.
However, an athlete after a race, once the finish point is crossed, does not immediately return to action. He decreases his action gradually before going to rest. This relief can happen naturally. It is different from person to person. This is what emerged after the attacks of 13 November.
What happens to people who remain traumatized?
A traumatic event is all the more so when it receives media coverage. There is a political discourse surrounding the attacks. We talked about war. This speech adds to the difficulty of recovering from it. There is always a before and an after.
But for resilience to work, the person must be able to be in a setting that allows them to be active in the face of the disorder that the trauma causes at all levels. Some will need to verbalize what happened, but it is important to monitor this verbalization. This is the role of the listening cells. What the person says is a reconstruction. From lived experience, she extracts things that are specific to her and draws conclusions.
A traumatic event is all the more so when it is publicized
Some will say that the world is "rotten" and will see themselves in a very dark reality. Others will feel that the danger is everywhere and will feel persecuted. These people will have difficulty leaving their homes and taking transport. Others will come to terms with this experience by connecting to the fact that they were lucky and were active in relation to that luck.
In the way these people relate to the past event, they construct a new reality. Even in a car accident, the person may be "actively passive." The fact of connecting to this makes it possible to measure that one has not merely suffered the event.
It is very important for the human being to recontextualize the action. Because in a trauma, something is frozen and is reactivated in the present. Images of a dark street with closed doors or the sound of sirens remain and create acute stress. The person will try to avoid the situation.
In a professional context, should these people be encouraged to consult?
The more people are given the choice to see a specialist, the better, if they feel the need. The way we listen to it will be very decisive. It is important not to reflect to her that what she has been through is deeply appalling.
To approach these situations, it is necessary to be trained, to be able to limit oneself to hearing and to help this person to consider different aspects of what he has experienced and what frightens him. This is to normalize the shock.
In general, people feel very guilty. They may experience anger, fear, pain, a shake-up of their value system. Putting in a framework that promotes the need for convalescence does not necessarily mean sending these people to the "psychologist", but offering them the possibility of being in a secure reality.
What attitude to have, at work, when a colleague or collaborator has been a victim, is a survivor or close to affected people?
When a person around us is personally affected, the question arises of how we will relate to them, take into account this shock and their difficulties. We can offer kindness, be empathetic, observe how she reacts. Does it show any changes? It is only if, over time, worrying signals appear, that we can worry, if the return to life is not done correctly.
The aim is to allow these people to return to a reality that brings well-being, without considering that they are no longer capable of returning to work. Some will be in this difficulty, others will not, because work is a health factor.
Contrary to what certain union representatives are asking for, who believe that these people should stay at home, the recommendation is to let these employees return, taking the event into consideration, being attentive to the difficulties that could arise and offering speaking spaces, on a voluntary basis.
What do you recommend to be particularly attentive to exposed personnel or trades?
While it's normal to be upset, it's not abnormal to feel good. Post-traumatic stress can arrive later, register in the person who will want to forget what shocked him, to erase what was. But erasing what happened is impossible. The real situations of post-traumatic stress are seen later. If things get worse, the person collapses. Studies show that it takes about four weeks to recover.
When certain professions have been more exposed, if there is a recommendation to be made, it would be to observe these populations to see if new signals could be the consequence of the events. Conversely, some health or police professions are predisposed to manage risks. They expect it. It's part of their job.
What happens in the listening cells that you set up after tragic circumstances?
We organize them on a voluntary basis. They make it possible to ask questions, to give meaning to the event and prove to be very effective. In some cases, the event awakens previous post-traumatic stress. In less than ten sessions, our team manages to clog, to put the mechanisms of resilience back in motion. It is a question of taking care of these people without dramatizing and without projecting oneself on what they are saying. Because you can "push" a person with the best intentions in the world. We are no longer able to offer him help.
Our method consists in saying that even if the person has gone through hell, he will have to go through this hell or this pain again differently. It's the only way out. But currently, we lack psychologists trained in trauma management.
We lack psychologists trained in trauma management
