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A Street Survival Guide for
Public Safety Officers
The Cop Doc’s Strategies for Surviving
Trauma, Loss, and Terrorism
A Street Survival Guide for
Public Safety Officers
The Cop Doc’s Strategies for Surviving
Trauma, Loss, and Terrorism
Dr. Daniel Rudofossi
Sgt. NYPD (Ret.)
Boca Raton London New York
CRC Press is an imprint of the
Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
© 2012 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
No claim to original U.S. Government works
Version Date: 20111110
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-4398-4578-3 (eBook - PDF)
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Contents
Foreword xv
Acknowledgments xvii
Preface xxiii
Introduction xxvii
1 Police and Public Safety Complex PTSD
(PPS-CPTSD): Understanding My Own Police
and Public Safety Complex Trauma 1
What’s the Real Deal, Doc Dan? 1
Dismounting from the Saddle: When Complex Trauma Hits
Home—Existential Questions! 3
Public Safety Officers and Existential Questions: Eco-Ethological
Existential Analysis 5
Tragic Optimism as Courage to Command Presence and
Respect (Self and Others) 6
Silence in Traumatic Loss—Deadly Rounds—One More
Round Please! Which One? 7
Cop-In: No Cop-Outs! 8
Public Safety Officer Reality Equation: Your Own Existential
Self Analysis 8
What Does the Eco-Ethological Existential Analysis Ask of Me? 9
Public Safety Complex Trauma Syndromes: Keep It Simple,
Complex Is Complex! 12
Stop, Pause, and Reflect: When and Why Did I Lose My Sense
of Loss, or Did I? 12
SOP: Placing Fear of Death and Harm in Your Scope of Practice 14
Ethological Memory Imprints of PPS-Complex Trauma
Experiences 16
Existential Analysis of the Eco-Ethological Impact of Complex
Trauma: Soulful Rhythms 19
Dissociation and Survival: Fractures of Terror, Dissociation,
Healing Rifts, and Integration 21
Adaptive Functional Dissociation Pounding Your Public
Safety Beat Experiences 22
v
vi Contents
Dan the Cop: A Case Example 24
The Job Is Never Routine—Not a Moment: What You Do with
That Reality Is Your Choice 28
Different Eco-Ethological Existential Impact of Event(s) Not
Considered Traumatic (SOP) 30
Existential Empathy as Seen through Your Eyes by Looking
through Their Eyes 30
Understanding Loss: Intent as the Bricks of Guilt, or the
Window of Forgiveness 32
Brief Snapshots: Police Sergeant, Firefighter, and FD
EMT—Unique Impact 33
The Radio Run: Routine as Quantum Moments Strung in
the Space of Echoes in Time 33
Sergeant X’s Unique Experience and Focus 34
EMT X’s Experience and Focus in Loss: Ideal, Play, and
Possibility 36
Physical Facts Are Not Perceptual and Parallel Reality for
Officers on the Scene 36
Q&A: Question and Answer Sessions 37
Sergeant X: Brief Steps Backward into His Experience of the
Potentially Traumatic Event 38
Officer EMT X: Brief Overview of Her Experience of the
Potentially Traumatic Event 41
Firefighter Z: Brief Overview of His Experience of the Fire and
Overdose Victim 44
Inner Sight to the Above Examples and the Question “How
Are You Doing Officer?” 45
What to Do Beginning Right Here and Now: For Yourself,
Peers, or Loved Ones 46
Identity Modes Are Not Scripted Roles: They Are Identity
Shifts Shaped by Trauma 47
Let’s Review Identity Mode Shifts and Adaptive Functional
Dissociation 48
Officer M’s Ethological Object of Threat: A Hairbrush to a
Firearm—Head Wounds 49
Gearing Up: Transcending the Ecology and Ethology of
PPS-CPTSD 51
Contents vii
2 Complex Trauma, Terrorism, and Loss:
Ecological and Ethological Survival—Saddling
Meaning into My Own Sam Browne Belt 55
Overview 55
“It”: Barricading Your Own Guilt, Self-Punishment, and
Hidden Losses 56
Peer Support Team Members: Allies for All Seasons 58
A Politically Incorrect Truth to Be Aware of: A Tsunami Is
Not a Bleep on the Radar 58
Terrorism, Trauma, and Losses—Officer, You Have Landed in
the Burnout Zone 59
Rehearsal of Possible Outcomes: Real or As If Surreal—
Attack, Regroup, and Recover 61
What Is the Context of the Impact of Your Losses? Even More
Questions as Guideposts 61
Perspective in Your Own Focus: Thoughts, Feelings,
Behaviors, and Soul 63
Sworn Officer: Stripped of Civilian Longings and Strapped for
Public Safety (SOP) 65
Self Help Is Better Than Not Helping Yourself at All 65
Choosing the Right Cop Doc/Cop Counselor for My Own
Public Safety Personality Style 66
Red Flags—Red Alerts: Exit Doors from Trauma and Grief
Therapy 67
Your Responsibility in Counseling—Resistance and Working
Through 67
Public Safety Officers and Therapy—A Revolver Needs a
Holster—Alliances 68
Don’t Play Doctor: Go to a Doc You Can Trust: In Therapy—
Honesty Is the Only Policy 69
Resistance from an Ecological-Ethological Perspective:
Working through Being on the Job 70
The Eco-Ethological Identity Survival Modes 71
Exercise on Your Own Conscious Awareness as a Public Safety
Officer Operator 71
Experiment in Assessing Conscious from Unconscious
Awareness: Results—What to Do? 71
Becoming the Finest—Humane in Being—You: Questions and
Your Own Answers! 74
viii Contents
Reload and Redirect the Cylinder of Your Eco-Ethological
Beliefs to the Barrel of Your Existential Purpose as It Is
Developing Now 76
Let’s Reload the Ethological and Ecological Cylinder Further
by Asking “Why?” 76
Survivors of Land and Sea: Lions, Dolphins, and Navy Seals,
PD, FD, and EMTS 78
You Are Not God! You Can Say to Yourself, “Let Go: Let God!” 79
Uniquely Me: Choices, Responsibility, and Compassion Begin
with Yourself! 79
Public Service as Artistic Expression: Creativity and
Compassion’s Shield against Despair 80
Personality Styles as Different Styles of Expression and Process 82
Your Unit as the Ecological Center That Shapes Your Identity
Survival Modes 84
Overview of Understanding the Eco-Ethological Existential
Analytic Attitude 85
Communication Works in Three Directions in the Eco-
Ethological Existential Analysis 86
Therapist’s Attitude: Engaging Your Partner in Working
through Complex Trauma 87
Terrorism (Domestic or International) Is Not Diplomacy by
Other Means—It Is an Act of Evil and Cruelty That Should
Never Be Whitewashed Away in Platitudes 87
Your Highest Existential Dimension Is Your Own Unique
Courage to Serve 87
Competent Public Safety Mental Health Professional Attitudes 88
The Eco-Ethological Stance toward Public Safety Complex PTSD 89
Understanding an Eco-Ethological Existential Analytic
Approach to Police Complex PTSD 91
The Five Steps of the Eco-Ethological Existential Analytic
Method 92
Step 1: Express Your Most Distressing Traumatic Event as
You Define It in Your Own Words 92
Step 2: Take the Experience of Trauma and Losses You
Expressed and Shift Your Focus to the Details You
Remember about That Event 95
Step 3: You Can Now Express Your Thoughts and Feelings
about Your Actions, Deeds, and Your Own Quality and
Intensity of Emotion and Experience as Meaningful to You
in Your Unique Interpretation 98
Contents ix
Step 4: Meaningfully Separate Your Adaptive Thoughts,
Beliefs, and Behaviors That You Have Learned from the
Maladaptive Thoughts, Beliefs, Behaviors, and Destructive
Interpretations to Motivate and Navigate in the Here and
Now of Life and Living as a Public Safety Officer and
Individual 102
Step 5: You’re Able to Retell Your Own Eco-Ethological
Reconstruction of Thoughts and Behavior Related to Your
Own Experience of Trauma 105
Prelude to an Eco-Ethological Existential Analysis of PPS-
Complex PTSD: Final Hours of Suicide by Public Safety
Officer—Deadly Contagion Contained: The Trial 108
Clarifying That Truth with You Is Healing for It Validates
Your Own Truth and Experience 112
Case of Sergeant Z: PPS-Complex PTSD: Experimental
Traumatic Neurosis 112
Biography 112
Sergeant Z’s Account of His Most Traumatic Event 114
A Trial and Error Reconstruction of PPS-Complex PTSD
with Sergeant Z and Dr. Dan 114
Eco-Ethological—Existential Analytic Intervention with
Sergeant Z 119
The Pit of Piloting a Psychotic Storm with Sergeant Z: A
Hell of a Ride with No Exit Door 121
3 Prelude toward Understanding Your Own Public
Safety Personality Style: Overview 129
Full-Filling Losses in Someplace: Losses, Options, Solutions in
Closed Spaces 130
Full-Filling Losses with Something: Toothache to Psychache:
Options and Solutions 132
Existential Despair and Psychache: Suicide Is a Forever
Solution—The Pit of All Illusions! 134
Existential Analysis in Eco-Ethological Analysis Is the Head
of Your Own Myth to Live By 135
Sudden Strike: Shock, Loss, and Shield—Personality and
Ecology—The Armadillo Effect! 136
Ecology and Ethological Dimensions—Shifting Impact: What
Unit, Detail, or Mission? 137
The Most Crucial Questions Hardly Asked and Most
Important for Field Duty! 138
