Help friends with the skill of debriefing: it may create post traumatic growth.

My darling girlfriend rang me: obviously flat. Something was wrong.

Somebody who was to meet her at an outdoor café location for an appointment was late...but she had already seen them in the vicinity so she knew they were around.

She figured she'd have time for a drink following her exercise routine so she set off to find a water fountain....and she found her appointment instead:

On the ground, on a path off the beaten track, and having a heart attack.

My friend did what she could. CPR, calling for help, talking and soothing the woman on the ground between CPR routines.

The young woman died.

My friend was rightfully upset and she kept second guessing that there could have been something else she did/said.

Because I am well versed in the formula for debriefing (Fact, Feelings, Symptom Education, Coping Plan and Follow up) I automatically offered her a debrief.

A debrief is psychological first aid: it provides

• a chance for people to talk about their feelings and work through emotions
• a structured way to think about the incident
• an opportunity to learn about how the brain can trick them out of recovery from the incident, and
• a pivot point toward post traumatic growth rather than post traumatic stress.

What a privilege for me to offer this to my darling friend. I wanted to end her emotional pain as quickly as I could - thank God I knew the framework of what to say.

The thing is, no special skills are needed to offer our friends/family/colleagues a critical incident stress debrief. You just need to know the framework and how to structure the way you deal with each of the five required areas of the debrief.

Please, learn the framework so that you can offer your friends the psychological soothing gift of a debrief if ever needed. 

Sign up to my handout below and receive 3 perfect frameworks for communication including the debriefing framework.

You then have the option to have a free 1/2 hour call with me to help you learn exactly how to do a debrief to your friends.

Till next we communicate, Mxxxxx