How to Support Someone After a Crisis

I recently attended a fundraiser course on Emotional First Aid, which was given to those who donated to the Maui relief fund, by Melissa Tiers and Simone Seol. And what they covered was so valuable that I want to share it with you here - plus give you info on how to get the full training yourself if you’re into it.. What I cover not only includes tools that can be applied for immediate relief, but also includes what NOT to do, because often - even with good intention - we can cause more harm when we intervene unskillfully. Melissa, who has experience using these tools after 9/11 in New York as well, says that so many therapists went down to help people process through their shock and trauma. And unfortunately, what the research showed was that when we process this way in the first 24-48 hours, we can create a situation in which people are prone to suffer from PTSD. So one guideline is that in the first 24 hours, don’t “make” someone debrief or retell the story. This is because it can set in motion a thought loop or plants the memory in a certain way when it’s still so fresh (more on that later). Another concept we cover is the Ring Theory. This is the idea that the person who directly experiences the disaster is at the center. Outside of them are these concentric “rings.” The next ring would be someone closest to them. Like an intimate partner or a family member. And the next ring out would be a close friend. Then acquaintances. Then onlookers and strangers and so on. The main mantra with this theory is: Comfort in. Dump out.  In other words, offer comfort and support to the person closer to the center than you,and refrain from looking to people closer to the center than us to help us process our own challenges and struggles. If we need to do that, we can vent or cry or scream to those on the outer rings of the circle from us. So if we’re talking to someone in the center or a more inward ring, we can ask ourselves, am I offering help and support? If not, I need to take that somewhere else… outward. Now, people process disasters differently. Some people may hide. Or flee and not deal with it. And others might just go go go and they’re energized by the process, doing whatever they can, compartmentalizing to make it through, just to get shit done. Of course, that can’t be sustained long-term, right? It’s exhausting to be constantly problem solving and fixing.  So we can meet them where they are and find out how they’re processing and what is important for them at that moment - and keep an eye out to care for those firing on all cylinders to make sure they can recover.  Let’s revisit the when of helping people process a disaster or crisis.  When someone is ready to share (and don’t ASK them to share - it’s only if they want to talk about it) we can actually effect huge changes by considering our language. For example, we can use a technique of asking them to tell it in past tense to help self-soothe and dislodge trauma from the brain. This has a similar effect to telling it like they’re watching a moving, in a movie screen that’s “over there,” allowing them to safely dissociate from the event. This helps to create distance between what happened in the past and that person in the present moment. We kind of do this more skillful dissociation naturally when we say things like, “then what happened was… there was a fire over there and we ran.” Compared to “we’re running” or “you’re hitting me.” Do you see the difference? There are so many other tools I discuss in the full Episode, so be sure to listen to get all that goodness, but I do want to touch on one more thing: Havening. Have you heard about this? It works a bit like EFT and it’s simple to do. B