Of mind and body: Health consequences of stress and trauma on police officers

This chapter was written for the mental health professional working with Law enforcement officers (LEOs) in either a psychotherapeutic capacity or as an organizational behavior management consultant. It aims to humanize the emotional distress experienced by officers in these specific contexts by fully explicating the tasks and experiences typical of such work duties, and discuss literature related to the psychological needs of LEOs who conduct fatal crash scene investigations, and discuss ways of addressing the LEO’s mental health needs, in this specific context, and how one might do so at both the individual and the organizational level. An extensive literature review failed to identify studies that examined the psychological needs of LEOs in the specific context of fatal crash investigations. Law enforcement officer stress has been a topic of interest in the empirical literature for many years. The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) model has been utilized in organizational contexts and the effects examined empirically.