Getting it Twisted: 4 Mental Mistakes Cops Make

When I see a new police officer client in my practice, I listen for the content of the officer’s problems. 

This department is FUBAR

My supervisor is a jackhole 

I can’t sleep 

you get the point. 

Yet, more important than the content of our problems is how we think about our problems. More often than not, our thinking is the problem, or at least makes it much worse.  

You’re feelings are never wrong, but your thoughts can be. A few years of unchecked, incorrect thinking can get us pretty sick. That’s because our thoughts lead to feelings, and prolonged feelings (i.e. anxiety, depression) screws up our body by releasing potentially toxic levels of cortisol and the suppressing feel-good chemicals like serotonin.  So, ground zero for your gastritis, insomnia, anxiety or depression is HOW YOU THINK about stuff. 

Depression and anxiety meds fly off shelves faster than the busy bees at your HMO can stock ‘em. Pharmeceutical industry executives have huge houses and take expensive vacations because they sell us medicine that helps fix the results of our twisted thinking. 

Cops aren’t especially prone to twisted thinking, we just gravitate toward certain types of what are technically called ‘cognitive distortions.’ These are the distortions I see the most in police officers,

[the names of these bad boys come from The Feeling Good Handbook by David Burns]

1. All or nothing thinking. This happens when, instead of thinking of your police agency as running well in some areas and poorly in others, we conclude, “This place is totally fucked up!” TOTALLY. Nothing good here. Really? Very few things in life are all bad (or all good for that matter).  When we consistently see things as all this or all that we are making a mental mistake. 

2. Labeling. This happens when you label the totality of who you are based on one event. For example, I recently allowed a guy to look for his ID in a duffle bag he had at his feet, an officer safety mistake. A concerned fellow officer pointed this out to me. If I were to say to myself, “I’m a fuckin’ IDIOT!” that would be an example of labeling. Allowing the bad guy to access his duffle bag was a tactical error, not an indictment of my worth as a human being. 

Cops tend to be perfectionists. Employers love perfectionists and we usually have successful professional lives. That is, until the pressure we put on ourselves blows up our body and we get panic attacks or ulcers. 

3. “Should statements”: Related to perfectionism. Not sure why, but it seems like police officers ‘musterbate’ more than your average bear. 

I need to be more careful.

I need to stop making this mistake.

I need to tell my Sgt. to find another punching bag. 

I need to have a tougher skin. 

No, you don’t. Believing that you must is bad for your health. How ‘bout, 

I’d feel safer at work if I took my time more and called for cover more often. 

I’d like to really focus up on my report writing.

I think I’d feel better about myself if I set limits with Sgt. Douche Bag. 

I’m a sensitive person, a quality almost universally seen as desirable. I’m going to practice toughening up a bit for this cop job so I can feel less vulnerable at work. 

4. Emotional Reasoning. Those who use emotional reasoning either forget or don’t know that emotions are, by definition, temporary. In this world, I feel angry = I’m being screwed over or feeling guilty means “I’m a bad person.” We cannot draw long term conclusion ― any long term conclusion ― from an emotion. Better is to (a) recognize it as a feeling and (b) know that it will pass. Even desirable feelings (i.e. that of being ‘in love’) won’t last forever. 

In The Feeling Good Handbook, author David Burns offers up some practical advice for how to “untwist” your thinking. For now, if you’re able to identity your own cognitive distortions you’re well on your way. Peer support officers in particular would benefit from trying to identify not only their own twisted thinking, but that of their fellow officers who come to them for help. 

Happy untwisting!

Recommended Reading

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090312165204.htm

Building psychological resilience: An open letter to Field Training Officers

Your place in the department is established. You’ve demonstrated that you’re a good cop and have been elevated to the position of Field Training Officer (FTO). It doesn’t matter if you’re a crusty old veteran who’s trained more officers than you can count, or a 26 year old right out of FTO school. Either way, you’re a bridge for the new boot, and you’re job is to help the recruit transition from academy life to real life. 

As an FTO, you’re probably great at knowing which form to fill out for this and that situation. You’re officer safety skills and tactics are probably squared away. I’m guessing you’re a perfectionist. You're interested in more than just getting your recruit through FTO. You want to shape a good cop. 

Now, let me ask you this: what are you doing to build your recruits psychological resilience? Psychological what?

Resilience. It’s not on a duty belt or in a beat bag, it’s in your mind and in your body. It’s what ensures that a 20 plus career in law enforcement won’t chew you up and spit you out a bloody mess onto the rocky shore of your retirement. Resilience is something you model. Your recruit isn’t just watching how you clear hard corners, they’re watching how you deal with work stress. Included in work stress is what researchers call “organizational hassles.” As an FTO, you know all about those too, don’t you?

Allow me to speak for your trainee. He or she probably won’t say this to you directly because (a) they’re shaking in their boots already at all the stuff they have to learn, and (b) they’re on probation and don’t want to get shit canned for telling you how to do your job. What your recruit is thinking, but probably won’t say is, “How do I stay sane...no scratch that...Ah, you see I want to be a cop, but I also want to be emotionally healthy. I want to be a good romantic partner, parent, friend. I want to be both a good cop and a psychologically well person. How do I do that?” 

Since this probably wasn’t covered in FTO school, here are two behaviors you can model to build psychological resilience in your trainee. These two suggestions come both from my experience as a cop and as the son of a cop, and as a mental health professional. It also comes from recent research conducted by a some nerds in Australia. They wrote a piece for the Australian Psychologist, called, On being mindful, emotionally aware, and more resilient: A longitudinal pilot study of police recruits.

Here are the two behaviors,

Mindfulness. In the study just mentioned, the authors write, “Mindfulness is... an active state of consciousness, which involves being open to and engaging with all aspects of one’s moment to moment experience.” So, it means being aware of your thoughts, feelings and bodily experiences while doing your job. This behavior flies right smack in the face of police culture, which doesn’t much value introspection. Our allergy to introspection is one of the reasons so many cops lead miserable, abbreviated lives. 

To read more on mindfulness, see “Mindfulness on Patrol.” 

Secondly, FTO’s should know how to identify their own emotional experience, and be willing to legitimize the emotional aspect of policing. Frustration, sadness, helplessness and, yes, fear are all inexorably tied to police work. We just don’t usually talk about these feelings. We need to start. Don’t worry, neither you nor your recruit will become blubbering messes or incompetent by merely acknowledging basic human emotions. 

By modeling mindfulness and emotion identification you’ll make your trainee more psychologically resilient. As a result, that trainee will be less likely to engage in “experiential avoidance.” That’s where we don’t handle stress on the front end (i.e. mindfulness) and end up managing the psychic fallout later. And how do cops engaging in experiential avoidance manage stress? Gambling, boozing, sexing, playing first person shooter video games until 2 AM every night. You get the point. 

The Field Training Officer has perhaps the single most important job in a police agency. Building psychological resilience in new officers, along with tactical and administrative proficiencies, makes a rock solid officer. Such officers not only represent the agency in a more professional manner, they take less sick days, get fewer citizen complaints and make better people in the world. 

Prevalence of Intimate Parter Abuse Among Police: A review

Are cops a bunch of wife beaters who are above the law?

Intimate partner violence (IPV), or “domestic violence” is often added to the list of psychological pitfalls associated with a career in law enforcement.  Those in law enforcement, or those considering it as a career, may find themselves troubled by an internet search on this topic. Advocacy organizations such as The Purple Berets and the National Center for Women and Policing claim “research shows” police officers have a 40% rate of domestic violence, compared to 10% in the general population, or domestic violence is “2 to 4 times more common in police families.”(NCWP) Is this true? 

The psychosocial dynamics of intimate partner abuse are complex. We can choose from a smorgasbord of theories when looking for reasons why people (mostly men) batter. Researchers, policy makers and advocacy groups also debate the most effective ways to prevent domestic violence from occurring or stopping it once it has begun.  Leaving these issues aside, I’m going to address just one seemingly simple question: is the rate of domestic violence among police families higher than that of the general population? The key word here is “seemingly.”  I’ll explain why the answer to this question can be found only tentatively, and only after untangling it from two enemies of science: politics and emotion. 

CLEAR AS MUD

My father, a man not known for profundities, taught me “Opinions are like assholes.” I took that to heart. Therefore, I have been looking at what the science says on this issue. The science on this topic is about as clear as mud. Here’s why. 

The first distorting factor we meet with when looking for the true rate of intimate partner abuse among police families is the passion surrounding this topic.  Julius Caesar wrote, “Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true.” This sure seems to be the case for much of the literature on domestic violence within law enforcement, on both sides of the issue. 

The way around this obstacle is to avoid becoming personally invested in the outcome. If my raison d'être is ending violence against women I may be inclined to scour the internet looking for confirmation of “that which I wish to be true.”  I’m in the fortunate position of not needing to find anything when reviewing the literature on this topic. 

Clear as mud factor #2: Collecting data on a sensitive topic from folks as clannish and guarded as police officers.  A group, by the way, that has a low opinion of “wife beaters.”  When asked in a survey, police officers are unlikely to endorse acts of violence against their family members, especially after passage of the Lautenberg Amendment in 1996. 

This law prohibits anyone convicted of domestic violence - including misdemeanor convictions - of owning a firearm. Moreover, the law was retroactive. This produced a small ripple of panic in the law enforcement industry as administrators frantically scoured their personnel files for officers with prior misdemeanor domestic violence convictions. As it turns out, “Research on the effects of the Lautenberg Amendment consistently shows that the use of the law has been rather limited and police officers have often been able to circumvent the ban and retain their weapons.” (Lonsway, 2006) However, as cops know all too well, perception is reality. 

This brings us to the topic of survey research.  The only viable way of studying the prevalence of domestic violence within police families is through surveys. While they’re a legitimate research method, surveys are vulnerable to a number of attacks, primarily along the lines that they’re unable to establish cause-effect relationships and that they rely on self-reported responses, which can be problematic. Imagine, for example, asking airline pilots in a survey, how often they consume alcohol while at work. “I NEVER drink on the job.” Right.  

THE RESEARCH

Before the Lautenberg Amendment, there were three well known studies in the area of IPV within police families, two of which we’ll look at.

 The first, by Neidig et. al., (1992) surveyed officers and their spouses. They were given a laundry list of types of violence (everything from “pushing” to using a gun and everything in between) and asked if they had experienced any of these. Approximately 40% of the respondents endorsed one or more types of violent incidents. A weakness here is the failure to discriminate between what type of violence couples experienced. We don’t know what percentage of them had a shoving incident versus one in which the husband choked or beat up the wife. Some in the world of domestic violence prevention believe it doesn’t really matter if you call your wife a “whore,” push her or give her two black eyes. It’s all domestic violence, so these distinctions are insignificant. That’s what I was trained to believe, and it’s what my clinical experience has shown. Others, like PoliceOne contributor Richard Davis, claim these distinctions are very important because “family conflict” is different from “battering behavior.” (Davis, 2004a)

The second  (Johnson, 1991) involved 728 officers and 479 spouses. “40 percent of the officers stated that in the last six months prior to the survey they had gotten out of control and behaved violently against their spouse and children.”  (p. 34) Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly what “getting out of control and behaving violently” means. Richard Davis (2004b) slams this study on this front. He writes, “The Johnson study is a survey not a scientific empirical study.” Hmm. Not a compelling argument there. I think we can surmise the behavior Johnson found very likely fit within the realm of domestic violence. But again, it depends on whether or not you adopt the “family conflict” model of domestic violence. 

MORE RECENT RESEARCH

Gershon (2005), who by all accounts is a five star academic, surveyed 1,103 cops about, among other things, domestic violence. She writes, 

Altogether, 9% of all respondents (76/857) who had a spouse/partner, reported that they had committed physical spouse/partner abuse...that these were completely anonymous questionnaires, and... the responses were validated with a well defined domestic violence attitudes scale, we are confident of the accuracy of these percentages.

So, there’s a bit of a monkey wrench in the numbers with this, at 9%. Gershon notes that the Lautenberg Amendment may have contributed to her finding of comparatively low rates of IPV in this population. The idea here is that, if officers believe (READ: perception is reality) that making an admission of domestic violence will cost them a career, that officer will opt to keep the career.  

SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE US?

I think my dad (RIP) may be okay with the revised dictum, “Uninformed” opinions are like assholes.  I have the following informed opinion: Domestic violence is probably at least as common in police families as in the general population. Further, as has been noted repeatedly in the literature, when it does occur, in police families it poses unique challenges to the victim. 

Clearly, we need more (and better quality) research in this area. I say, “better quality” research but I have no good ideas about how to improve the quality of data outcomes here. That’s a job for the big brains. 

 Endnotes

NCWP: From the National Center for Women and  

           Policing web site:   

            http://www.womenandpolicing.org/violenceFS.asp

Davis, R. (2004b). Domestic Violence: On the front lines. 

            This article appears no longer available online. I have 

             a hard copy of it, which I got from 

            http://www.browardcrime.com.htm

Davis, R. (2004a). Domestic violence and police officers as abusers and victim. Retrieved January 24, 

            2011 from  the PoliceOne web site: http://

            www.policeone.com/standoff/articles/77224-

            Domestic-violence-and-police-officers-

            as-abuser-or-victim/


Gershon, R. (1999). Police stress and domestic violence in police families in Baltimore, Maryland.
            National Institute of Justice, Data Resources Program. 

Johnson. LB. (1991). On the front lines: Police stress and 

            family well-being. Hearing before the Select 

            Committee on Children, Youth and Families 

House of Representatives: 102 Congress First Session 

            May 20 (pp. 32-48).

Washington D.C.: US Government Printing Office. 

Lonsway, K.A. (2006). Policies on police officer domestic 

            violence: Prevalence and specific provisions within 

             large police agencies. Police Quarterly

V.9(4) 397-422.

Neidig, P.H., Russell, H.E., & Seng, A.F. (1992). 

 Interspousal aggression in law enforcement families: 

            A preliminary investigation. Police Studies: The 

            International  Review of Police Development, 15(1), 

            30-38.

Nedig, P.H., Seng, A.F. & Russell, H.E. (1992). 

         Interspousal aggression in law enforcement personnel 

         attending the FOP biennial conference. National

FOP Journal Fall/Winter, pp. 25-28

Examining the Police Personality

If you studied criminal justice in college, chances are that at some point you were forced to write a term paper on “the police personality.” I wasn’t a criminal justice major myself, but I know this because every time something new on the subject finds its way on to the internet I get a Google “alert.”  

Researchers have been intrigued with the police personality for well over 30 years, beginning with criminology professor Jerome Skolnic’s work A Sketch of the Policeman’s Working Personality in 1977. Most cops, on the other hand, don’t really care about the topic. 

It’s when we’ve made a commitment to ourselves to lead healthy, happy, productive lives that knowing something about the police personality becomes valuable. Most of the land mines police officers hit throughout our career (divorce, substance abuse, depression, coronary disease) have roots in our own personality. Simply put, cops are a “type,” and that type can lead to our own undoing.  

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Let’s be more specific and say that for cops, the unexamined life will likely lead to a shorter, sicklier and less happy life. 

  

Personalities - our well worn attitudes, beliefs and worldviews - mostly remain stable over time. Our moods are fickle. They change all day long. Personalities, not so much. We can change our personalities, it just requires time and effort.  

WHAT IS THE POLICE PERSONALITY?

The first question is, “Is there a police personality?” Yes, there is.  Okay, we’ve settled that, now let’s talk about two competing theories for how we “get” the police personality. 

Importation Theory says that the police personality is created by picking out from the sea of humanity, a certain type of person to be police officers. Pick, pick, pick. Remember the psych. tests you took when applying for the job? The ones where you felt they were trying to set you up?

True or False

1. I’d like to be a librarian?

2. Sometimes I hear voices that no one else hears?

Or,

Fill in the blank.

1. When my mother ___________ I feel ashamed.

2. Sometimes I cry when _________.

Those tests were meant to weed out “undesirable” types. Risk managers have decided that psychotic, impulsive, or timid people don’t make good cops. When all the schizophrenic, loose canon, introverts have been weeded out, the police department is left with us. Thus, we’re an “imported” type. You may be interested to know that police psychologists are much better at weeding “out” people than weeding them “in.” 

Then, there’s Socialization Theory, which states we’re not a type when we start the job but that the police culture shapes us into the police personality. I’ll leave it at that. A considerable amount of empirical support can be found for both theories. 

SO WHAT “TYPE” ARE WE?  [note: you’re probably going to think, “I’m not x or y!” Remember, there’s well over 900,000 cops in the U.S. alone. These traits are based on LARGE samples of law enforcement personnel].

Compared to the general population cops tend to be:

Pragmatic

Isolative

Prejudice

Conservative

Suspicious

Cynical

Assertive

Action oriented

Scientists have developed scales for every trait you see above. They can be measured and compared to others. 

Okay, so now we know what that the police personality is a type and what that type is. How can knowing this make you a happier, healthier human being? 

Let’s call the above traits, The Big Seven. If you “examine” your life as my man Socrates suggests, the first thing to do is commit the Big Seven to memory. Put ‘em on a flash card or something. Why? Because awareness is more than half the battle. That’s what I tell my therapy clients. Really. If you’re aware of a problem, symptom or in this case, a personality trait you can begin to see how it operates in your life. For some reason, simply being aware of it can lessen it’s harmful consequences. 

Take one trait that and pay attention to how it creeps into your life, even when your not on duty. Suspiciousness, for example, is part of a cops hardwiring. It makes us better officers. However, our spouses, friends and children may find it trying when we’re constantly scanning for nefarious activity while at the movie theater or restaurant. Don’t completely let your guard down, just be AWARE of it. Awareness will give you more options. Maybe, just maybe, the weird dude two houses down isn’t a pedophile. 

Awareness is an attitude. It’s not as easy as it sounds because it requires attention and some level of personal commitment. I hope you pay attention and have made a commitment to staying in shape physically. You better have your ass in the gym because you don’t get to pick the time some parolee wants to kill you. They get to pick the time. 

Likewise, I encourage you to make a personal commitment to your mental health. Paying attention to how the police personality can detract from your wellness isn’t as concrete as doing push-ups, but the benefits are similar. 

Tactical Police Psychology

Tactics are supposed to be the life blood of policing. Being 'tactical' not only applies to specific calls for service, but is extended to every aspect of our lives. Cops are forever vigilant about ‘officer safety’ and the safety of our families. The universal salutation of peace officers is, ‘be safe.’ Police tactics are based not in folklore, mysticism or intuition. They’re based in science and what’s termed the ‘scientific method of inquiry’. In fact, what Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman calls ‘Warrior Science’ has developed into its own industry within law enforcement.

The same science that informs our tactical practices has provided many insights into the psychological impact a career in law enforcement can have on individuals. The news isn’t good.

Police officers lead shorter and sicklier lives than the general population. We are prone to some types of cancer, heart disease, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, marital discord, alcoholism, early death and suicide. The list goes on.

For many, law enforcement was more of a calling than a career choice. We made a conscious decision to give up material wealth for the peace maker’s noble path. Unfortunately, we give up more than wealth or community recognition or fame. We also give up our bodies and our entire pre-law enforcement world view. We become pessimistic, cynical and jaded.

Modern science clearly points to a need for extending tactics beyond where we park during crimes in progress or how we clear a room. Those that study police psychology have articulated a need to apply to the same concern for the preservation of our physical integrity to the psychological realm. We’ve learned the hard way that officers are eaten up and spit out by ‘the job.’ The police personality, exacerbated by a ‘suck it up and drive on’ ethos within our well-defined culture has produced generations of officers suffering in silence.

Until recently, the stress-related diseases associated with a career in law enforcement were ignored. Officers suffering from cumulative traumatic stress, organizational hassles and years of seeing people at what Kevin Gilmartin calls ‘their maddest, baddest and saddest’ were left to their own devices. As an industry, we reaped inaction and sewed alcoholism, depression, suicide and disease. Such has been the historical lot of the police officer.

I’ve seen the infamous Officer Implosion from several angles. I watched my father, a proud California Patrol Officer, struggle with depression and alcoholism. He was injured on the job forcing his medical retirement and unceremoniously kicked out of the ‘police family’. I’ve seen well respected officers develop drug and alcohol problems. All too often they wait until their wheels are falling off before finally asking for help.

Now, the good news. A growing army of psychologically injured yet strong officers, retirees, researchers and police mental health professionals have been building bridges, connecting the science to the cop. Ivory tower social science research isn't worth the paper it's written on unless it's applied to real people.As the name suggests, ‘Tactical Police Psychology’ encompasses a set of practices and knowledge aimed at preserving officer's psychological integrity. A pre-requisite for utilizing Tactical Police Psychology is the capacity to be honest with one’s self. This is many times easier said than done. We ask questions like, ‘Do I drink too much?’ or ‘Could I be depressed?’ It also requires a willingness to take positive action to improve our mental health. It involves a sense of ‘not knowing,’ never easy for cops.

Using Tactical Police Psychology helps us ‘be safe.’ The spouses and children of officers benefit from our utilizing physical tactics because those tactics allow us to come home in one physical piece at the end of our shifts. They also benefit from our using psychological tactics because they allow us to come home in one piece mentally at the end of our shift. An emotionally broken, depressed, alcoholic warrior may still be able to push a patrol car around, but he's not much of a father or a husband.

Our mission is to bring primary mental health prevention to officers. Primary prevention is well known in community health initiatives. Until recently, it's been non-existent in law enforcement. We invite you to cross the bridge, free of charge. If you believe, as many do, that thoughts, feelings and attitudes are ‘touchy feely’ and therefore have no place in law enforcement, you’re wrong. You’re also in danger.

Policing is one of the helping professions. As such, it behooves us to treat our minds with the same great care we give to our bodies.

Drove down beautiful Highway 101 last week to attend the 15th Annual California Peer Support Association conference in Ventura. I was particularly fired up to hear two of the scheduled speakers, both from the east coast: Dr. John Violanti and Janice McCarthy.

Violanti is a professor at the New York State University at Buffalo, a researcher and a leading expert in police psychology. He was also a New York State Trooper for 23 years.

Policing is strongly influenced and dependent upon science. Everything from collision investigations to crime scene processing to criminal profiling is based on the scientific method of inquiry. John Violanti is here to say that the same scientific method is giving us good information about the mental health of police officers. The news isn’t great, but it’s actionable. As individual officers, supervisors and administrators we CAN do some things to make things better.

Dr. Violanti noted the important role of supervisors in knowing their people and being able to recognize the signs and symptoms of suicidality. He said suicidal people almost always communicate their intention to kill themselves before they act.

When we read news articles about officers committing suicide we frequently hear something along the line of, “It was a complete shock...it came out of nowhere.” To that the SCIENCE says, “BS!” If departments provided quality training to line supervisors in this area we could prevent some officer suicides.

Remember, suicide is the final act of a human being who has endured immense suffering. Alcoholism, depression, traumatic stress (the list goes on) are all correlated to suicidality, and they’re all treatable conditions. To paraphrase Violanti, suicide is “completely preventable.”

Janice McCarthy lost her husband, Capt. Paul McCarthy to suicide in 2006. A powerful speaker and a strong, determined woman, Janice gives a face to all those survivors of police suicide. Survivors everyone it seems would rather forget. She holds a mirror up to a law enforcement industry that generally hates introspection and says, “Here I am, this is real.”

Capt. McCarthy didn’t end his life because of “family problems,” as we so frequently hear. He died of an untreated psychological injury. Believe it. He was psychologically injured on the job, tried but was denied appropriate treatment, went back to work and repeatedly re-injured himself. Each time trying and each time being denied treatment. Risk managers know the importance of fixing broken tibias. They are at a loss about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. In 2010 this is unacceptable.

Untreated PTSD can take your life. If you don’t believe me, talk to Janice. She’ll explain it to you in a way you won’t soon forget.

Serving as an emcee of sorts for the conference was Andrew O’Hara from Badge of Life. This organization emphasizes what in public health is called “primary prevention.” Let’s not wait until our officers are suffering, pushing their patrol cars around our neighborhoods while suffering quietly. Let’s do preventative mental health. Badge of Life is chomping at the bit to send you educational materials, or come out to your department to train you. Their website is chalk full of useful written material and videos. Badge of Life also directs their attention to retirees, another group that we seem to disown from the police “family.” All their material is free.

The conference was quite heavy at times. I don’t think I’m alone, however, in returning to my department with a renewed sense of how vital peer support is.

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if not now, when?"

-Hillel