PTSD in Law Enforcement and Counter Viewpoints of Policing

Combat fatigue, burnout, over stressed, flashbacks of fear and near-death experience, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): different names for the same affliction, usually with the same devastation on the sufferer. The syndromes often go unnoticed and untreated because the person suffers in silence. Recognition of symptoms is a giant first step in treatment through counseling, medication, understanding and comforting by significant others, and deinstitutionalization. In police work, stress and life-threatening incidents often result in anxiety plus “self-medication” through alcohol or over the counter or prescription drugs. The common person, and perhaps fellow officers including the victim, do not acknowledge the existence of a failure in the mental processing of a traumatic experience or the accumulation of several stress and anxiety inducing incidents. This results in the sufferer reliving the incident until an emotional breakdown causes an explosion in anger, fury, aggression, or fear of failure to respond appropriately to a non-specific circumstance.