Managing Emotions in Emergencies

Section “PSYCHOLOGY OF EMOTIONS” by Diego Ingrassia – “Managing Emotions in Emergencies ”
for PSICOLOGIA CONTEMPORANEA – Emergencies – n. 261, May-June 2017 – GIUNTI EDITORE

Late afternoon. You are at a table in a bar, in the outdoor area, in the company of some friends of yours. An aperitif like any other, serene, full of goliardia and fun. Suddenly you hear some sirens in the distance, rapidly approaching in your direction. The sound now becomes deafening. They have stopped close to where you are standing, but you can’t see anything yet: you can’t distinguish whether police or police cars have arrived, whether it’s the fire brigade or an ambulance.
“What’s going on?” you ask yourself puzzled.
The situation is abnormal, and the intermittent alarm sound you hear immediately makes you alert, attentive, focused.
You stiffen in your chair, falling silent for a few moments in a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.
Your attention is exclusively focused. Everything happens automatically, emotions take over.
Why does this happen?
The human body is a highly intelligent biological machine.
It responds to the environment adaptively, to protect itself and thus survive.
When we are subjected to strong environmental stress, we find in the responses of the sympathetic autonomic nervous system every useful energy resource to cope with a possible danger: the heartbeat accelerates, the breathing rate increases to favour an extra supply of oxygen, and consequently the muscles are ready for action. Everything is very fast, explosive, perfectly coordinated. Neurotransmitters and hormones activate our body simultaneously. We are ready to react.
An attentive observer would notice alterations in our voice, muscle tension and particular facial expressions. Obvious signals, along with very rapid micro-movements that an eye trained and educated through scientific methods of analysis can register precisely.
Think of the case when, crossing a pedestrian crossing, a hit-and-run driver drives wildly in our direction and without braking. facial expression of fear, our body can:

• flight quickly to avoid the impending collision;

.

• paralyse completely, in panic;
• disappear;
• attack, railing against the driver of the car

.

The reasons why our body automatically reacts in such a specific way can be explained by the Theory of Evolution. The ‘attack/run’ mechanism, which can cause paralysis or fainting, is part of our behavioural repertoire that allowed our hominid ancestors to survive.
The modern world, fortunately for us, does not have the same dangers. No dangerous carnivorous predator chases us in the middle of downtown Milan, but compared to our example of the hit-and-run car, no less than three out of four of the behavioural reactions described are useless in terms of our survival: only running away is functional to save us.
War, but also traumatic events less distant from our context, such as earthquakes, avalanches or a terrorist attack, are other clear and powerful examples in our minds.
Police forces, civil defence, doctors and psychologists dealing with emergencies know how important it is to manage the emotional reactions of rescued persons and to avoid dangerous behavioural and psychological consequences.
In addition to good communication strategies, these professionals must be able to pick up valuable indicators from the non-verbal communication of their interlocutors and recognise the micro-signals of destructive emotions, to prevent the situation from degenerating and losing control.
Capturing emotions and revealing clues in communication is also crucial in other contexts, where prevention makes it possible to avoid risky situations that can seriously jeopardise people’s safety and lives.
Recent news events related to terrorist attacks represent a concrete and stark reality, which must be stemmed by every possible means. Intelligence services and law enforcement agencies, as well as customs and surveillance services, can make use of methodologies that integrate verbal interview techniques with the emotional-behavioural analysis of the interlocutor, in order to assess whether the latter is credible or prone to lie during the control phases.
In addition to collecting data from their databases, law enforcement agencies have the opportunity to implement their skills in finding key information useful for investigations – from eyewitnesses, victims and potential suspects – thanks to these scientific methodologies.