NCJ Number
85201
Journal
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin Volume: 51 Issue: 9 Dated: (September 1982) Pages: 7-11
Date Published
1982
Length
5 pages
Annotation
Police officer occupational stress inevitably affects relationships in the officer's family, so family therapy should be included in an effort to relieve and resolve the causes and effects of officer stress.
Abstract
Family therapy views the family as a system in which each member is an integral part of the functioning whole. The family system has been defined as an organizationally complex, open, adaptive, information-processing system. In family therapy, the focus is not so much on the relationship between the therapist and the patient as on the relationships between the various members of the family of the person apparently having the most severe problems. When a police officer undergoes occupational stress, one part of the family system has some serious alterations; in systems theory, the entire family system will be affected. Communication within the family is one of the most important areas affected when one member is reacting to stress. The therapist in family counseling facilitates communication between family members that has been blocked or made negative by stress. Since many departments already have programs of counseling for individual officers and orientation programs for officer spouses, it would be advisable to expand counseling services to include family therapy. Twenty footnotes are listed.