Contributions to Operational Psychology: Psychological Training Model in the Context of Stress Management for Specialized German Military Police Personnel and Specialized Police Personnel

Abstract

The service of specialized and special forces of the Federal Armed Forces and police is characterized by complex situations. Such personnel often face numerous difficulties and extreme danger and experience periods of high stress when fulfilling their tasks. In the context of social and technological changes, it is necessary to explore the individual components of stress management in further detail, i.e., stress prevention, stress control, and stress coping mechanisms, and furthermore to consider these elements in the fields of training and service. For this purpose, a stress management model was created based on participant observations, expert ratings, and problem-centered interviews with specialized members of military police and special police forces. The results of the validation can be interpreted as suggesting that effective stress management requires a diverse range of techniques and methods, including the use of digital means such as e-learning, digital reality, and eye tracking, in order to be able to address new demands appropriately.

Assignment-Specific Stress Inoculation Training for Highly Specialized IT Personnel

“…In this context, stress management is regarded as a generic term that encompasses methods and techniques for reducing mental strain [24]. It aims at the adaptive handling and successful management of external and internal stressors [24,37,39]. Stress management is made up of several segments building on one another, which, in their entirety, include all aspects of successful coping with strain.…”

“…As part of a resilience project for the Bundeswehr Military Police, Steingräber et al [39] designed an assignmentspecific stress management concept with the objective of (1) contributing to stress competence within extreme groups, thereby (2) achieving long-term mental strengthening [4,12,21,35,39]. In this way, when selecting techniques and methods, a distinction was made between stress prevention, stress control, and stress management.…”

“…SIT can be carried out in an assignment-specific manner and adapted to all fields of activity. Consequently, based on stress management according to Steingräber et al [39], an assignment-specific SIT was designed for highly specialized IT personnel. This assignment-specific SIT is to enable the target group to (1) recognize and analyze dysfunctional emotions, thoughts, imaginings, and behaviors and link them to triggering stressors; (2) train problem-solving strategies; (3) actively regulate emotions and stress; (4) use maladaptive responses as cues for activating their stress control techniques; (5) acquire sufficient knowledge about effective stress control techniques and enhance their self-reflection and their repertoire of stress control techniques with a view to coping with (un)expected stressors.…”

“…It is imperative that the psycho-educative communication of knowledge should sensitize individuals to the subject of stress, including stress in an organizational context, and, in particular, contain an in-depth understanding of the impact of stress and the interdependencies between stress control techniques and stress responses [39]. This communication of knowledge must not be looked at in isolation but planned as a combination of theory and practice.…”

“…Individual stress management is understood to mean the entire repertory of techniques for stress prevention, stress control, and stress management as well as their (successful) application [39].…”