Course Details
Course Description
NOTE: This 3-hour CE course is approved for 2.5 hours of POST CPE. This intermediate-level program examines the Emotional Regulation/Stress Tolerance construct as it applies to first responders and peace officers, from its regulatory grounding in POST screening dimensions and MMPI-3 instrumentation through the occupational stressor load that taxes the capacity over a career. Practitioners learn the affective science underlying regulation strategies, the evidence on early post-incident intervention, empirically supported individual and organizational approaches to building and sustaining the capacity, and clinical considerations in treating first responders whose stress tolerance has been overwhelmed. The program emphasizes what the evidence means for both preemployment psychological evaluation and clinical treatment.
Course Objectives
After completing this course, participants will be able to
Identify the two categories of occupational stressors faced by first responders and explain how each contributes to the erosion of emotional regulation and stress tolerance over a career
Describe the neurobiological mechanism of allostatic load and its relationship to chronic occupational stress, sleep disruption, and cumulative psychological impairment in first responder populations
Differentiate between cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression as emotion regulation strategies, including their differential associations with post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety symptoms in first responder samples
Evaluate the evidence base for single-session psychological debriefing as an early post-incident intervention, including findings that raise concerns about potential harm and the conditions under which the evidence applies
Apply knowledge of the MMPI-3 emotional/internalizing domain and the POST Emotional Regulation/Stress Tolerance screening dimension to competent psychological assessment and treatment of first responders across the career arc