RCMP psychologists across the country conduct psychological assessments and screenings, support employees with operational stress injuries and connect police officers with mental health professionals in their communities. They play an important role delivering services that help keep our partners in blue safe and healthy. We asked five RCMP employees how psychologists can better support our police officers.
The Panelists
- Cst. Lee Watt – General Duty Policing, Inuvik Detachment, N.W.T.
- Dr. Barbara Schmalz – Division Psychologist, Calgary, Alta.
- Lise Godbout – Division Psychologist, Fredericton, N.B.
- Sarah Wright – Psychologist, International Health Services, Ottawa, Ont.
- Cpl. Deepak Prasad – Divisional Wellness Coordinator, Halifax, N.S.
Cst. Lee Watt
The psychologists are there to support us, but it comes down to officers being willing to speak with them. There's still a fear of mental health and lot of people don't think they're that bad and they can do it themselves.
I've been an RCMP officer for 15 years and spent the majority of the time doing general duty policing in Alberta and the Northwest Territories. I was off duty because my anxiety and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was getting so bad that I was doing breathing exercises at calls. I had been getting worse for a couple months and I was put in touch with an RCMP psychologist in Alberta.
She referred me to the Operational Stress Injury Clinic and continued to advocate for me there. Right now, I'm in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, an isolated post without a lot of support so she advocated for me in the clinic and I moved up the list. She helped me come up with a return to work plan that seemed reasonable and they'll be supervising my return to work program.
If I would have sought help sooner, I likely would have been able to stay on duty. We could do yearly check-ins but we need more contact with psychologists so we have rapport and officers know where to go when they're struggling.
One bad day is not a bad thing, but a bunch of bad days means you need help and should get help. You shouldn't be living in constant depression or anger or fear. There's help available and we need to reach out and get it.
Cpl. Deepak Prasad
As Divisional Wellness Coordinator, a lot of my time is spent listening to and understanding the struggles that police officers are going though. We look at building resilience by hearing about what happened in the past and how we can move forward with that. I also build bridges with clinicians and psychologist to understand their skillset so if something comes up for an officer, we can link them with the right person.
I think it's fair to say police people are fairly suspicious by nature. They can be hesitant to go see a clinician and they definitely have their guard up. There's a lot of stigma we're combatting, especially regarding operational stress injuries.
When an officer goes to a clinician, we tell them to give it time to build a relationship, but if a clinician is not what we call culturally competent, they're not going to connect. If a police officer goes to talk to somebody and they don't know what a police car is or what police work is or what a duty belt is, the officer can feel like they're in an educator role instead of getting help.
I think the best way is to understand the job because then they can connect better. And when they connect better, they can strengthen rapport and once they strengthen rapport, it can help mitigate and reduce the apprehension an officer may have going into the meeting.
Another factor is having clinicians who are flexible on time. A lot of police officers work shift work and they can't attend an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. appointment. Having some flexibility outside of business hours is a big help for our people.
Dr. Barbara Schmalz
RCMP divisional psychologists are part of a multidisciplinary occupational health team whose mandate is to manage the occupational health of RCMP officers from start to finish. While the role changes at times, occupational health psychologists are involved with duty fitness, helping officers gain access to, or be aware of, mental health services, screening for specialized units in the RMCP and return to work after medical leave.
One thing that can help psychologist support police officers is trying to destigmatize and normalize mental health; to acknowledge that the mental health of police officers is as important as the physical health. It's so important to be able to respond and stay safe and remain healthy over the course of their career. Psychologist can reinforce to police organizations and individual officers that there should be ongoing attention paid to mental health. It shouldn't just be when things get really bad. I think if everyone takes a proactive approach to staying healthy with regular checks and acknowledging that sometimes things do get really bad and you need to address it, then negative impact can be reduced.
Taking the mystery away and not making it seem like it's some voodoo secret treatment. It's straightforward when you're a mental health professional, but it's getting people to your office and making them realize that nothing bad is going to happen when you talk to someone and when you seek professional help.
Lise Godbout
In the RCMP, each division is distinct in its own way. Psychologists can increase their helpfulness when they know the officers, know the divisions, and know what matters most there. The more we're able to normalize psychologists as resources for police officers, the better off they'll be in benefitting from psychological knowledge and services.
For example, earlier in the year in New Brunswick and four other provinces, we launched a program that offers police officers a more helpful psychological screening process to notice and discuss factors in their life that can cause stress.
The Psychological Health Screening Program allows us to have more of a conversation between the psychologist and the officer in a more open and transparent way. Together, we look at the elements of stress that they've encountered in their work and personal lives. That opens the door to a discussion of what they've managed to do to cope that's been helpful to them, and what's been particularly challenging for them. We discuss these factors with them to increase their psychological self-awareness and resiliency. They can then benefit from the psychologist's knowledge and receive feedback that they can consider as they make decisions about their physical and mental health.
The RCMP psychologist then has the opportunity to provide education on multiple factors that include internal and external services available to RCMP officers and their families, followed by education on topics that matter to them currently. For example, for people doing patrols and shift work, we're able to talk about sleep hygiene, or how to maintain good sleep patterns despite the shift work. The topic of enhancing resilience often arises at this point.
Sarah Wright
My role is a bit unique because it's focused on police officers inside and outside of the RCMP who are deploying internationally. I also work with the liaison officers and the analysts who are deployed abroad.
Within the international program, we assist officers by focusing on their well-being and mental health throughout the deployment cycle. This is done through pre-mission assessment, a pre-deployment group briefing on psychological resilience, in-mission support provided over phone or video and occasionally in person and a post-deployment psychological assessment that also provides education around common challenges with respect to reintegration at work and at home. The program also offers handbooks for before, during, and after the mission for both officers and their families.
I think anyone who works in law enforcement is under a lot of pressure to be a stress rock star, and they often are, but no one is immune to the effects of traumatic exposure or human suffering. The cumulative effect from years and years of dealing with all these stressors can take its toll and symptoms can start and they can seem like they're coming out of nowhere. I like to make sure officers in our program are thinking about that and know what they can do to address that should it come up.
When we come to view ourselves as stress rock stars and expect to be able to handle everything, there's a lot of anxiety that comes when officers experience symptoms. I think one of the best ways we can help is to provide ample information about what's going on at the brain level. The idea that just like an arm, if you apply enough pressure it's going to break, if you apply enough pressure to a brain you're going to injure that brain. And, I think it's very important that we provide information and education around that. I think it reduces the shame because it can happen to anybody if they're under enough stress and it's a normal reaction to abnormal things that no one should have to go through.