Counterbalancing misrepresentations of Critical Incident Stress Debriefing and Critical Incident Stress Management

Abstract

The July 2003 edition of the Australian Psychologist was dedicated to a state-of-the-art description of occupational stress and wellbeing. It contained an article on psychological debriefing by Devilly and Cotton (2003 Devilly, GJ , and Cotton, P , 2003. Psychological debriefing and the workplace: Defining a concept, controversies and guidelines for intervention , Australian Psychologist 38 (2003), pp. 144–150.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), that misrepresents many aspects of the current field of knowledge and practice of Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) and Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD). The authors inappropriately generalise from a few very flawed studies of single session, once-off, individual debriefings to CISM, which operates in the workplace. Allegations are made of unethical and bad practices without substantiation. This paper addresses these and other issues raised by the article. As well, it asserts the value, to both individuals and organisations, of properly run CISM programs and CISD interventions.