The greatest stress people experience during critical incidents is the feeling of helplessness when the “Oh, shit” moment arrives and you know things are out of control. That happens during debriefings, too. These tips are intended to help you get through those situations.

Situation: People are treating the debriefing as a “drop-in” counseling opportunity. Solution: Ask for people to only join at 15, 30 or 45-minute intervals, so that you can run a series of mini-debriefings.

Situation: Command or supervisory people, directly affected by the incident, try to also be debriefers. “Let me invite you to just be a (parent, brother, sister, friend, etc.) right now. We’ll handle this for you.” If that doesn’t work, “You are too closely connected to this incident to also respond to it.” Finally, “I need you to just be a victim right now. ”

Situation: Debriefing participant is trying to fix things. Answer, “That’s one of those things we just can’t fix. How was that for you?”

Situation: “Susie Sunshine fails to acknowledge how bad the incident was, encourages others that life is still wonderful.” Response: “Although it is that way for you, not everyone responds the same way or at the same time. We need to give people permission to be sad or angry or whatever they are feeling until they are ready to start feeling better.” Sometimes this leads Susie Sunshine to say something like, “I want to comfort Jane, but I don’t know what to say.” Response: “I think you just did.”

Situation: Everybody affected is very frustrated by an institution (business, school, etc.) is paralyzed by bureaucracy and can’t seem to decide how to respond.  Answer: Acknowledge that this is very hard.  Give permission to be frustrated and angry.  Say (if true) that the organization is figuring out the best way to respond and that’s why we are here.  Don’t say that we are waiting to see what the organization will allow – that takes away any sense of control.  Ask how they would like to respond.

Situation: You realize that,possibly with the best of intentions, someone has given out false information – “little white lies” intended to spare people discomfort, such as saying someone died peacefully in bed when that wasn’t the case.  Answer: As quickly and gently as possible, let people know that the information wasn’t accurate, apologize and take responsibility, as the leader, by asking their forgiveness.  Trust is vital; asking forgiveness surrenders control to the affected personnel, which is healing for them.