I realize you are a psychologist and I don’t have a PhD, but I do have to respectfully disagree with your article on a scientific level.

You mention that the practice of debriefing was recommended to be stopped. In the public safety arena though, debriefing is a needed practice. Yes, a (relatively) normal human being may experience one or two traumatic experiences in their lives. Generalizing everyone into that category though is misleading. Public safety responders may experience ten or twenty extremely disturbing traumatic experiences throughout their career.

In this case, debriefing can be a good thing as long as it meets two criteria. First, debriefing must NEVER be mandatory. When the practice is employed, tt should always be offered as a voluntary session. No one individual should be forced to speak if they don’t want to share. Forcing someone who doesn’t want to share to talk about their feelings can be detrimental. Second, debriefing alone is not a good idea. Public safety agencies need to have a comprehensive Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) program in place to help responders deal with a crisis. A good CISM program has debriefing as just a single component, and in the public safety arena it can be very beneficial.

Granted, for the general public a single debriefing after a crisis is mostly not going to do much for the person. But, for public safety responders who may have to deal with death and destruction week in and week out, debriefings as part of a larger CISM program can be extremely beneficial.