Psychological Debriefing Essay

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Psychological Debriefing: A Critical Analysis Psychological debriefing is a hot topic of current debate regarding effectiveness or counter-productivity. Psychological debriefing, or PD, is an intervention process for survivors and the families of traumatic events that urge reliving and discussing the incident to deter stress responses and long-term effects. Authors Devilly and Cotton (2003) published an article asserting this intervention as harmful, targeting critical incident stress debriefing, CISD, a specific form of PD that J. T. Mitchell developed in 1983. A few months after the article by Devilly and Cotton (2003), Mitchell (2004) published an article in the same journal, firing back with claims that the authors misinterpreted and distorted CISD, accusing them of glaring errors and an ill comprehension in the field of CISM, critical incident stress management, wherein CISD is a small group intervention process. The articles are reviewed, arguments considered regarding the issue of PD, which stance maintains a prominent foundation, and the side contemporary research supports is explored. The Facts The premise behind the article that Devilly and Cotton (2003) published was to evaluate the consequence of PD and determine whether or not the intervention process approach is helpful or harmful and secondly to discuss provisions in workplace environments for traumatic events. The response article published by Mitchell (2004) was to defend the specific form of PD, CISD, that he developed and that Devilly and Cotton (2003) repeatedly singled out in their article. Devilly and Cotton: PD is Harmful Those with the best intentions does not equate to those intentions providing the best results. PD was developed as a preventative and speedier means of stress-response and avoidance to develop anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, when
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