Psychological First Aid

24 February 2021

Humans don’t hesitate to administer self-help when we fall, scrape, or puncture ourselves.  We staunch the bleeding, control the pain, cleanse the wound, and protect the damaged area.  We call this first aid, probably because these actions represent our first line of defense, usually home- or field-based.  We learn this from our parents, teachers, and coaches.  But what about the non-somatic pain, the two categories Viktor Frankl classified as spiritual and mental, what do we learn about first aid for the mind and spirit? 

Formally, we learn very little because, as a society, I don’t believe we’ve come to terms with the reality or roles these two entirely human factors play in the orchestration of well-spirited lives.  One of the upsides of this ghastly pandemic is that this is changing as the costs of mental health become clearer at epidemiological and local levels. Another upside is that I stumbled across a set of recommendations kindly written up by Stacey Colino of the Washington Post who learned of them through their author, Dr. George S. Everly.  Here’s my annotated edition:

Address basic bodily needs:       

Consume nutritious foods.  Move often, even within a small space.

Avoid further harm:                      

Treat others & yourself with respect and compassion (see blogs The Cost of Compassion, 10, 17 February 2021). 

Accept that whatever you are feeling or going through right now is perfectly normal.

Protect yourself from information overload.

Keep calm to carry on:                 

Do some relaxation work: yoga, mindfulness meditation, deep breathing, or progressive muscle relaxation—every day.

Set priorities:                                   

Consider your most urgent needs, including how to prioritize and address those needs. 

Focus on the situations you can do something about i.e., those things really in your hula hoop.  (See blog Scheduling as Survival, 5 May 2020).

Build hope:                                        

“Research has found that a ratio of three positive emotions to every negative emotion helps people

flourish.”  You can add those positive emotions through encouraging recollections or going to a place in your imagination that brings you hope.

Connect with others:                    

“The single best predictor of human resilience is support from other people i.e., practice ‘physical distancing’ not ‘social distancing.’” (George S. Everly, author, Johns Hopkins Guide to Psychological First Aid).

Practice good communication: 

Practice active listening—improve your ability to hear the words and meanings of what others are saying.

Reinforce coping skills:                

If you’re dealing with someone in distress, ask them how they have successfully coped with difficult situations in the past.  Suggest they use those skills now.  If the distressed person responds that she has not coped successfully in the past, ask her how she sees her ideal self coping and work with that. 

The takeaway from this is that we are all going through possibly the toughest time of our lives.  Reading the list is good but passive; performing—doing—the recommended actions is what changes your life. Please act on this list regularly acknowledging that you too have a spirit and mind every bit as susceptible to pain and injury as your body.

Dan Chalykoff provides one-to-one counselling concerning life direction, addiction, and change. Since 2017 he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery: danchalykoff@hotmail.com