Book Review
Managing Police Stress
by Wayne D. Ford, Ph.D.*
Dr. Wayne Ford is a former police officer who, in his seventeen years as a police officer worked in patrol, communication and crime analysis. He was a field training officer, a sergeant, and a CID burglary investigator. His career was marked by two extremely stressful events, both of which are hazards of the police profession, yet are at opposite extremes in terms of the control one has over outcome.
Ford was confronted by a shotgun wielding subject who was about to fire on him when Ford took him down, hitting him six for six with his .357 and killing him. Here's a situation where an officer was faced with the ultimate danger and through training, skill and perhaps some luck, prevailed. The other event contrasts with that one although it was just as life threatening. He had a heart attack in 1975 while on duty. Here survival depends not on one's skill or training as a police officer (although perhaps on the skill and training of other officers), but to a large degree on luck.
A heart attack for a police officer is the ultimate in feeling helpless because it is your own body that has betrayed you. As officers, you know there is always a chance of dying violently. You wear your vest, buckle up, remain alert, stay fit, keep your knowledge and skill levels high. You exercise control in many areas, and thus the odds are virtually always in your favor when it comes to the traditional hazzards of the street and our violent society. But far more officers succumb to police stress and die by having heart attacks than are killed by criminals.
I don't know whether Ford's heart attack was largely due to genetic factors or in part to police stress. He certainly looks fit enough in his picture. But I do know from a personal communication that his interest in police stress dates to the period following his heart attack when he began his study of police stress by reading voraciously on the subject. Although not a clinician per se (his degrees are in management) he ultimately developed his own expertise in the area. He's taught seminars on police stress and has counseled numerous officers suffering from police stress.
Managing Police Stress is based on the two day seminars on stress management for police officers that Dr. Ford conducted. The book, in looseleaf form, is divided into fifteen chapters, each of which could be used by police stress officers and peer counselors as the basis for a lecture. The chapters include subject matter familiar to those who have read some of the articles in Law Enforcement Stressline like why police suffer from a unique kind of stress. He has clear easy to understand check-lists and descriptions of symptoms and danger signs.
There are chapters on attitude, nutrition, breathing, autogenics, visualization, exercise, tension-release, color and stress, lifestyle and developing a personal action plan.
By the end of the book, the serious reader who is open to honest self-assessment, will have been helped to take a penetrating look at him or herself. He or she will have been guided through some personal written exercies (work-book style) to enhance self-awareness and better learn how to cope with stress. The publication comes with an audio tape with stress management exercises which utilize autogenic relaxation, visualization and tension release. Many officers have found such tapes quite helpful.
Picture below.....
* (Pub., The Management Advantage, Walnut Creek, CA, copyright 1998, 106pp looseleaf binder with audio tape)
