Critical Incident Stress Management is very near and dear to my heart.  As a paramedic in Southern California in the early 1980's we were subjected to unusual stress on a daily basis.  We worked closely with the California Highway Patrol and the California Department of Forestry.  We covered large responding areas in private ambulance companies with little or no emotional support for what we were exposed to. 

The concept of traumatic stress or secondary stress were essentially unheard of.  Some of us made it in the field and some of us didn't.  We were basically told to "suck it up" and if you can't handle the blood, guts, gore, and human suffering get out of the field. 

Luckily, the field of Critical Incident  Stress Management helped "normalize" otherwise expected thoughts and feelings about trauma and disaster.  Now almost a household word after 9/11, we are grateful there is assistance for people and normal people don't have to be labeled "crazy".  The mental health field has also come along way in not labeling people quite so quickly and more and more options for assistance and support are available to people now than 20 years ago.  

There are many excellent books and operations manuals that can assist in people getting assistance, knowing how to set up their own Critical Incident Stress Management Teams, and assisting their communities in general.    Featured below are many of the most useful and interesting books you may find useful in assisting yourself personally, your family, your community, your team, or your department.

George Everly and Jeff Mitchell are the fathers of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation and their article describes quickly and most effectively the heart and soul of Critical Incident Stress Management.

A PRIMER ON CRITICAL INCIDENT STRESS MANAGEMENT (CISM)

George S. Everly, Jr., Ph.D., C.T.S. and Jeffrey T. Mitchell, Ph.D., C.T.S.

The International Critical Incident Stress Foundation

As crises and disasters become epidemic, the need for effective crisis response capabilities becomes obvious. Crisis intervention programs are recommended and even mandated in a wide variety of community and occupational settings (Everly and Mitchell, 1997). Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) represents a powerful, yet cost- effective approach to crisis response (Everly, Flannery, & Mitchell, in press; Flannery, 1998; Everly & Mitchell, 1997) .

What is CISM? CISM is a comprehensive, integrative, multicomponent crisis intervention system. CISM is considered comprehensive because it consists of multiple crisis intervention components, which functionally span the entire temporal spectrum of a crisis.

CISM interventions range from the pre-crisis phase through the acute crisis phase, and into the post-crisis phase. CISM is also considered comprehensive in that it consists of interventions which may be applied to individuals, small functional groups, large groups, families, organizations, and even communities.

Next  I'm excited to share the basic operations manual for Critical Incident Stress Management and dozens of other helpful books on this powerful topic.  Please don't wait to click on the link below and browse the choices to see which might be helpful for you personally or your team.  Please blog and let us know which ones you found most helpful.  We would love your feedback and opinions.