DOES NOT REPLACE THERAPY<\/p>\n
Emotional first aid is not a substitute for professional therapy, just as physical first aid does not replace medical care, experts said.<\/p>\n
They stressed that first responders must also be aware of their own state of mind when helping others.<\/p>\n
“When people are distressed, they don’t pick up the call to call a psychologist. They will pick up a phone to call a friend and a family member. And you provide the first response there,\u201d said Dr Matthew Lim, deputy director of the master’s of psychology clinical programme at the National University of Singapore.<\/p>\n
“I think of it like a container. You are providing space, a container for them to pour their distress into.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Dr Lim cautioned that this has its limitations, particularly for the person offering support. He said people should consider their own emotional capacity before stepping in, especially if they are already feeling stressed or overwhelmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour own cup is full. And if you want to be a first responder, you need to have space to contain the emotions of somebody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Agreeing, principal registered psychologist Geraldine Tan added that psychological or emotional first aiders do not need to \u201cresolve everything at that point in time\u201d, but focus on de-escalating the emotions.<\/p>\n
Once that initial support is given, it is vital to connect the person to professional help – such as a psychologist or psychiatrist – to ensure continued care, said Dr Tan.<\/p>\n
She added that emotional first aid can help one to be prepared in moments of crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf, let’s say, somebody is breaking down in front of you – you’re not frightened, you’re not running away, you’re not succumbing to the fight, flight, freeze responses,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But she cautioned there is no one-size-fits-all response to people in distress.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a toolbox. When you are hurt, there are different degrees of hurt. There’s different tolerance levels also \u2026 so we pick and choose what is most suitable for ourselves,\u201d Dr Tan added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DOES NOT REPLACE THERAPY Emotional first aid is not a substitute for professional therapy, just as physical first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-209953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}