Sheepdog Tip of the Day, After Combat tip 81
The day after the incident, law enforcement agencies should conduct a group "critical incident debriefing" and the military should conduct the "after action review." Everyone directly involved in the incident and even those on the periphery should attend. If it is a police incident, include the police dispatcher and the call taker. If it is a military incident, you should consider including those soldiers who were nearby, though not directly involved, and include those at the command post, such as radio operators. The idea of a group critical incident debriefing is to "get back on the train" and derive specific memory cues from each other. You will likely hear participants say such things as, "So that's what you did?" "Oh, I forgot about that." "So, when you did that, that's when I did this. Now it makes sense." Like a jigsaw puzzle that had been scattered with pieces missing, it all begins to come together as everyone adds their one or two pieces. All this is not without its flaws. A process called "memory reconstruction" is unavoidable in a group debriefing. What happens is that some participants reconstruct, or fill in their missing pieces of memory with information learned from other participants. The mind hates a vacuum, so they might fill in the gaps and "remember" it as if it had actually happened to them. Some degree of memory reconstruction is inevitable, but the group debriefing is still the best possible tool for giving participants accurate information to help them remember, for helping them learn from mistakes, and for helping them on the path to returning to normal after a horrific incident. Consider conducting a second debriefing 24 to 48 hours later. This allows participants to get another night or two of sleep, which often provides for further memory consolidation. The second debriefing can also be done on location.
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Combat
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