Silent Struggles: Subjective Experiences of First Responders in Therapy
First responders are often the social safety net for many individuals. During disasters the firefighters, paramedics, law enforcement officers, and telecommunications officers are the first, and last, resort when the public needs help. Still, first responders face myriad barriers when seeking help themselves. Label avoidance and personal stigma are two such barriers mediated by the responders and mental health clinicians. Anecdotal data shows first responders often talk about negative therapy experiences due to mental health clinician’s unintentional invalidations and inability to handle the emotional labor of hearing first responder traumatic events. The author suggests more than one-third of first responders report negative experiences in therapy. Current data is insufficient to determine the rate of negative interactions and, importantly, why the experiences were negative. The proposed study aims to determine the rate of negative experiences and the reasons the first responders believed the experiences were negative. Mental health clinicians might be able to reduce the negative stigma of therapy by mitigating the negative experiences.
