For First Responders

First responders, by the nature of our jobs, spend our careers responding to emergency situations or to the scene of some kind of disturbance or trauma day after day. Responding to years of conflicts, medical emergencies, accidents, crimes, sudden deaths, even expected deaths can take a toll on us. We learn to cope. We switch into a work mode that is required to do what needs to happen under stress. We do as we were trained. We watch out for each other. Sometimes when things get intense, we might briefly check in with each other. When asked, we usually respond with a quick, “I’m good,” or “I’m fine”, or I’m alright,” even when something in the back of our mind tells us that this one was different, this one was more tragic than most, this one hits close to home, or this one causes me to question how God or fate can allow this horrible stuff to happen. 

The truth is that each one of us had a life before we got hired. Our current predictions on how and what is going to happen, what people will do, how well we are equipped to take on whatever challenge we are facing, our confidence, how much we trust others, how safe it is to be real with ourselves and those around us all started its formation when we were still young children. We modify our life rules based on what family was to us; what that parent, teacher, or coach said or shouldn’t have said. We modify our life rules through the trials, tribulations, exploration, and romance of high school. We form or don’t form our independence through college and professional training. Others are influenced by their military experience, life in war zones, and through the threat or actual loss of friends in battle. Each of us has our own individual life experience and perspective. Then, we come together. We answer the call to be the heroes in society – the dispatcher, the EMT, the paramedic, the firefighter, the cop. 

As I made my way through 28 years in law enforcement, we didn’t talk about stress much at first. Then we learned to acknowledge that based on our professional experiences we had this “backpack” we carried around with us. It was the collection of all the emotionally charged events we had experienced. The theory was that if we acknowledged what was in there it wouldn’t weigh us down, or eat us up from the inside out. 

What are those emotionally charged events? For a dispatcher, perhaps the ringing in the ear from a gunshot after your caller tells you he’s about to kill himself, the horror of a young mother crying for help when she finds her lifeless baby, the terror of a unit screaming for help or the deafening sound of silence on the radio. For the medic or firefighter, perhaps your first time notifying a mother that her child is dead, witnessing a family overcome in a house fire because the security bars won’t release, reassuring a patient that they will be okay then have them bleed out before you can extract them from a crumpled car. For the cop, perhaps the smell of blood at a violent crime scene, looking into the face of a middle school child after coming home to find her mother hanging from a chandelier, feeling the embrace of a teen the same age as your own child after she’s notified her father has been murdered, or processing the scene of your former coworker’s fatal accident. For any and all of us, the horrifying mass casualty incident. These, and other incidents like them, are the ones that stick with us, remain unsettled, and revisit us in our memories. Most of us don’t suffer from PTSD, but we do, indeed, experience post-traumatic stress – and a lot of it - by the time we retire. 

In order to stay focused and safe at work, in order to maintain our own mental health, in order to be present and successful in our personal relationships, there is a need to stay on top of unsettled memories. However, rather than just acknowledging what is in our “backpacks”, we now have the ability to offload the weight of individual events, reducing the emotional charge of past events. Even more exciting news is that this includes events before and after we start our careers. 

A process called Aroma Freedom Technique and a certified practitioner like myself can assist trainees who struggle to overcome doubts and insecurities within training or academy settings. The process can help identify and overcome blocks and downward spirals within field training programs or the dreaded personal improvement plan. It can ease the stress of emotionally charged events throughout one’s career. It can also assist a first responder struggling to find balance between work and home life. From an administrative standpoint, your employees are your greatest assets. Supporting the mental health interests of an employee that your organization has already trained and invested so much into is common sense. A sound mind is needed to perform our jobs without mistakes and to avoid placing ourselves or others in harm’s way. If a trainee to seasoned veteran appears to be experiencing a block in personal wellness, focus, or personal performance, encouraging that employee to participate in an inexpensive Aroma Freedom Technique session may quickly provide that employee an opportunity to break free from whatever underlying restrictions are interfering with obtaining and maintaining a shared preferred state of being and performance. For the employee, the process creates opportunity for emotional enlightenment and reset. For the individual experiencing frustrations at work or personally, it may help save your job or your family. 

Aroma Freedom Technique is not psychotherapy nor is it designed to replace psychotherapy for an individual suffering from diagnosed mental illness. It can, however, be used to supplement clinical therapy by a licensed therapist. And, when used in a timely fashion, a simple AFT session can address stress and emotional blocks before any actual disorder is able to take root. Proactive use may eliminate the need for formal therapy in the future, even in the aftermath of significant events, past or present.

Heroes are usually not the first to admit they need help. Traditionally, we don’t operate that way. However, we may feel free to vent, gripe, criticize, and complain about the world, citizens, co-workers, rules, regulations, and administrators confidentially with a peer. Formal therapy? We don’t want anybody to think we need a “shrink” (even if we actually would benefit or not). Plus, many of us may not want to pay a bunch of money to go see someone who may not understand our culture to begin with. 

The emotional freedom of the Aroma Freedom Technique happens at the brain’s amygdala - the crossroads and location of our primal fight, flight, or freeze response and our sense of smell. Aroma Freedom Technique was founded by Clinical Psychologist Dr. Benjamin Perkus. Understanding that this process can be responsibly practiced with clients by peer certified practitioners within various professional, therapeutic, life coach, religious, and/or others social support groups, he personally trains practitioners to pass on Aroma Freedom Technique benefits to others without requiring his students to be licensed medical or mental health professionals. This makes this powerful and beneficial tool more available, more affordable, and less ominous to our first responder community. A guided conversation with a retired peer, a bit of personal reflection, and strategically smelling 100% pure and therapeutic essential oils during that process engages our past at the brain’s amygdala that triggers an neurochemical opportunity for memory reconsolidation and much needed relief from stress, anxiety, insecurities, doubt, guilt, depression, loss, isolation, frustration, heightened emotional response to a past event, and/or many other emotional hurdles common to the active, injured, or retired first responder. 

Aroma Freedom Technique can simply be embraced by our community as advanced peer support. I am able to assist Greater Bay Area First Responders with this technique in person or online given time to mail a session oil kit prior to video conference. The process allows for confidential communication and a client can actually benefit from this process without directly revealing even to me, specifically, what they are working on and the memories involved. Too sensitive? Too personal? Not willing to trust? Even then, a “blind” session can still lead to breakthroughs. 

I am open to meeting with department administrators and/or mental health unit personnel, association and union representatives, mental health liaisons, and individual members of your organizations to further explain and demonstrate how this process is able to support the mental health of our community’s members. 

I hold a BS in Administrations of Justice and General Psychology from SJSU and now a M.A. in Pastoral Counseling from Holy Apostles College and Seminary. As a cop I worked both in patrol and as a school resource officer. I was a member of our department’s Critical Incident Team, served as a department liaison with our county mental health department, was a POST certified negotiator, peer support team member, and critical incident stress debriefing facilitator. Two of my chiefs have publicly cited me as having both command presence and “compassion presence” throughout my career. I have received accolades acknowledging my service to community, victims, and my peers on a department, city, county, state, and national level up to and including the office of a seated U.S. Senator. Of all the tools I have learned to help the public or my peers, none comes close in value to that which I see possible through AFT. I completed my training with Dr. Perkus alongside Toronto Police Detective Sergeant Lori Kranenburg. Both in training, as well as afterwards, we have both been successful in using AFT to address several past professional events that needed relief for ourselves, as well as issues in our own personal lives. I have had the honor of providing sessions to several of my former coworkers and a handful of men across the nation in video conference sessions. Both Lori and I are eager to bring this technique to the first responder community both north and south of our countries’ border. Please, for the sake of your own health, or that of your employees and/or membership, please take time to schedule an appointment and explore this process as a beneficial tool for our first responder community. 

Sincerely, 

Mark J. Doyle

Retired Police Officer; M.A. Pastoral Counseling; Certified Aroma Freedom Technique Practitioner