Introduction
For several years, I have wondered why the general public holds such derogatory judgment for those working in law enforcement and psychology. By observing the news and social media, it was clear that the typical portrayal of those in law enforcement is not only negative, but also that it is unforgiving. It has been common in the past ten years to see headlines that scream “Police Brutality!” or “Corrupt Cop Kills Innocent Boy!” Society only sees this angle and immediately assumes that all of those who work in law enforcement are callous and cruel. Of course, this is the same society that relies solely on the police force to be the ones to bend over backwards in any time of need. I questioned this thought process, thinking of my cousin who has been a cop for over twenty years. He has told me gruesome stories about what life is like out on the streets, the types of atrocities he’s witnessed, and the constant stress of always having his life at risk. It seemed unfair to me that these men and women in uniform were judged so outright, with absolutely no consideration for the stressors of their environment.
I began to take my questions about this current trend of police-bashing even more seriously when my mother made a comment that the characters in the show Criminal Minds behaved in an “awful manner.” Criminal Minds is a TV drama about the members of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. Their occupation leads them to investigate violent and generally disturbing scenes. This enables them to formulate a psychological profile on the perpetrator.
What upset my mother was a scene where the agents were making light of a morbid situation. They were cracking jokes around a mangled corpse. I tried to explain to her that the jokes may have been a coping mechanism. Quite often, people use humor in dark times to keep sane. This tactic is referred to as compartmentalization; it is the act of separating feelings from events and looking at situations, however gruesome, objectively. However, she remained unconvinced and insisted that their careers had made them emotionally void.
The same judgment and distrust for law enforcement could also be translated over to the field of psychology. The Behavioral Analysis Unit weaves the two fields together. Those who work in psychology are observed with a certain degree of heroism, much like the police force. However, instead of saving the body from certain doom, and apprehending criminals, psychologists save the mind and the body that it controls. They work with all kinds of personality disorders, and strive to help the individual reach mental stability. This protects their patients, as well as the rest of the world. More often than not, the mentally unstable people psychologists deal with day-to-day are dangerous, much like criminals that need to be apprehended by police officers.
I began my investigative journey by first formulating a question: How are the environments and coping mechanisms for law enforcement and psychology similar, and how do they help maintain balance on the apparent pedestal society has placed them on? The pedestal represents how the public sees those in law enforcement and psychology as impervious to stress and harmful environments, almost as if they are superhuman. No one would ever expect that the therapist needs therapy, or that the police officer may find a situation too violent and emotional to handle. However, alongside this idea of an infallible human being, society is too quick to cast judgment and disdain on these men and women on top of the pedestal whenever they don’t live up to these standards. This is because these occupations aren’t easily understood by those not completely submerged in the job. Textbooks and schooling only get half of the story of the actual practice of psychology and law enforcement.
This is why I am attending college to gain a dual degree in Psychology and Criminal Justice. It is also why I am going to strive for FBI internships, and an eventual doctorate, to gain both the written knowledge and the field experience necessary to become an effective criminal analyst.
Context
I sit snuggled up on a pillow-filled couch at home. It’s dusk, and my mug of Sleepy Time tea is a warm comfort from the chill outside. I’m completely content because there is absolutely nothing on my mind, aside from the fluffy mass of Norwegian Forest cat making a nest within my crossed legs. My attention snaps to the screen as it lights up in front of me. I’m once again lost in the window to my dream job, the Behavioral Analysis Unit, as my parents and I turn on another episode of Criminal Minds. I find myself fascinated as I see the combination of psychology and law enforcement perform an intricate dance with one another. Criminal Minds is a show that explores the world of criminal profiling, which is using psychological analysis of behavioral patterns to analyze and apprehend violent criminals. This week, a vicious murder has been committed. The perpetrator may be a narcissist, a psychopath, or a severe schizophrenic. These heroes on the show all seem to be flawlessly cemented in their positions, browsing gruesome homicide Polaroids as if they were reading the daily paper. It is also common to hear them cracking dark, humorous jests in the autopsy rooms, and, in doing so, to watch them finding camaraderie with one another. I see not only an exciting picture; I see my future, wonderful and terrifying. I see what I am going to college for, and why I want my doctorate in Psychology, focusing on behavioral abnormalities.
“Oh, that’s just awful! How jaded...and callous!” my mother chirps, yanking me from the vivid mental image of myself throwing on the bullet proof vest adorned in bold, capital letters, “FBI.” She of course is referring to a scene in which the agents are gathered around a dead body, routinely observing lacerations, punctures and other wounds. An agent makes a darkly humorous remark, and then they are back to business. My mother was aghast that these characters depicting professionals in the field of Behavioral Analysis could approach such grim scenes with undertones of humor, and it’s no surprise that she was.
The public only sees one side of a two sided issue—they see how they think the individuals in the heroic role should act, but they don’t see the entirety of what they are really exposed to.
That being said, it is common for the public to put these heroic figures on a pedestal, but they forget that these men and women are human as well, and will inevitably make mistakes and need help of their own. It is in this instant that the public who has set them atop the pedestal knocks them down.
Over the past four years, I have noticed a derogatory tone society has projected towards those who work in law enforcement. I see it in the news headlines, “Police Brutality!” is captioned everywhere. I see the families of those apprehended by police officers, spurning their actions, making comments that these men and women in uniform are callous, unfeeling “pigs” who get high off of the power surge. Seeing all of the negativity and judgment made me want to ask, “what about the other side?” I knew that there was missing information to be sought out, a behind-the-scenes reality of the life of those who deal with horrendous individuals and environments that regular citizens just did not care to learn of. I sipped my tea and stewed in thought.
I began to analyze the social context of this position in law enforcement. I started also to mentally explore what kinds of people these individuals deal with on a daily basis, and how psychology is incorporated into the process.
Mid-sip, there was a burst of clarity, my thoughts all came together. I knew that someday, as a pursuer of the field of psychology, I would be dealing with the very same thing. I will encounter people with severe personality disorders and people who are emotionally manipulative narcissists and, even worse than that, enraged families and citizens who want me to fix everything, but more often than not disapprove of my methods. Psychology and law enforcement mirror each other’s stressors.
It was then that my initial inquiry became personal. Someday, I am going to be put on the pedestal, and someday, the public is going to try to knock me off of it.
Methodology
I used the methodology of research, Portraiture, to answer my question. Portraiture is a qualitative method that bridges art and science. I deduced that this style would be perfect for my paper because I would be exploring the misunderstanding of law enforcers and psychologists with little outside support. This involved me going behind the scenes these individuals’ lives.
As the creator of this methodology, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot states portraiture is “the systematic and careful description of good ethnography, and the evocative resonance of fine literature” (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997, p.4). Portraiture consists of four pillars: interviews, site visits, database research and a personal narrative. Each of these pillars will be presented in this piece.
I recruited my Abnormal Psychology professor, who had worked as a therapist before and dealt with many degrees of instability in patients. I then reached out to my cousin who was just recently graduated from Sargent Training in the Austin Police Department. I knew he had a vast spread of experience, but he did not become one of my subjects for interview. Instead, he referred me to friends of his: the husband was an FBI agent and his wife was a patrol officer.
I then got access to tour the police department on campus at Texas State University and to sit in on one of their Criminal Justice classes. I observed the environments, moods and objects around me. While hunting for sites and searching for interviews, I had also combed through the library’s databases under the “Psychology and Counseling” and “Criminal Justice” sections. There I found several journal articles that illustrated the occupational stressors of both the psychologist and the law enforcer. The articles also discussed the necessity for societal support and increased empathy and understanding. Finally, I incorporated my own personal narrative throughout this piece. My relationships, occupational goals and individual drive will wove itself in and out of the interviews, site visits and literary sources that comprised my research.
Findings
The first event of this journey was an interview with my abnormal psychology professor. Over the course of the interview it became clear to me that, though reluctant to dive too deep into her experiences with an outsider such as myself, she obtained a certain enjoyment from the engagement.
I began our conversation by asking some pretty standard questions, such as what she would tell prospective students who wanted to pursue her field. “I would think they need to interview people who were already doing that,” she responded. This was all well and good but I found we were not truly breaking ground until I asked her something that made her stiffen slightly.
“What kind of effect did your work have on you personally?” I probed. She eyeballed me from behind her desk, cleared her throat and pressed on. I could tell she was rarely asked that question “That’s…that’s a great question. Because, (clears throat) I often do, well...not often but I do evaluations on capital cases, interview people who have been charged with murder. And, (clears throat) sometimes it’s pretty gruesome. And, uhm, most of the time I am not asking them to tell me about it, but sometimes they just do.”
While it can be argued that psychologists should expect a certain degree of morbidity as part of the job, it is just as easy for them to be emotionally affected by what they hear. Society takes for granted that psychologists often work with an extraordinarily disturbed side of the human race. Dr. Seay clears her throat once more and presses on, “—but if it was really frightening, I wouldn’t do the work.” This motivation to help others and to learn more about what help can be given is a driving motivator for Dr. Seay. However, she made clear that it was not a one-man job. “[…] there are some times when it’s just kind of overwhelming what I hear from the individual, and it’s hard to compartmentalize. Sometimes I need to talk to a colleague.” She is explaining that the community of psychologists acts as a counseling group for one another, backing up my original idea that those in this position need more support than is assumed by the public. Her co-workers acted as a second family in this situation, helping her overcome the stress when she could not compartmentalize on her own.
Aside from the necessity of support, Dr. Seay pointed out that in this line of work taking things personally is a sure way to fail. “If I personalized it, I wasn’t gonna get very far in this field.” When I asked her how she went about achieving this depersonalized mindset with her clients, she coolly replied, “I learned over the years that if I just took a matter-of-fact approach to it, I generally got cooperation.”
Dr. Seay helped shed light on a psychologist’s world. Her explanation of stressors and coping mechanisms tied into the second interview on my list. Through my cousin, I contacted a patrol officer, Brenda Glasgow. Over the course of our conversation concerning ordeals she had gone through and deaths she had seen, Brenda became increasingly emotional. When I asked her how she copes with this all alongside day-to-day media harassment she said, “I work night shifts, which is the sh*t of it. I work in the hardest part of Austin. There are good nights and bad nights (chokes up) I’m sorry, I didn’t want to start crying. Every time that you have a certain case that you did a good job on, you forget the negative.” I prompted her once more about her reaction to public criticism, to which she responded, almost spitefully, “Forget the negative press, forget the negative light, I say to whoever, ‘ya’ll can point your cell phones at me!’ When we are on a shift, we gotta black out, we are out here for a purpose.” It was in this sentence that I tied Brenda’s interview with Dr. Seay’s. Each of these women repeated the phrase “I have a job to do,” again and again.
In dealing with the occupational stressors in these interviews, the importance of family stuck out to me. For Dr. Seay, her co-workers acted as a strong, supportive family. My observation of this was more overt in Brenda Glasgow. Over the course of our phone interview, whenever she would get particularly emotional I could hear her mutter to her husband, who was beside her for comfort. When I asked about her children and family life, she made it clear that it was a very precious thing in her world. I had asked, “So your kids don’t give you a hard time when you’re not there?” She took a minute to compose her breathing, “Every night before I leave, I call them down. We all give hugs, say ‘I love you’...” It was reassuring to observe a functional, loving police family. Over the course of my database research, it was evident that that was not always the case. I sat down to browse the Criminal Justice section in the databases with the past two interviews in mind. I came across a disturbing title, “Intimate Partner Violence within Law Enforcement Families.” This article stated that it was common for the stress of the job to be taken out on the family at home. This stress does not simply exist due to personal endangerment as Anderson, a noted scholar for The Journal of Interpersonal Violence explains, “[…] there is a lack of public and administrative support, which puts officers at a severe risk of experiencing extreme stress.” (Anderson and Lo, pg 1177). This lack of support is detrimental to those in law enforcement and their families because these police officers often feel like they are trapped in the workplace.
As I kept in mind that law enforcement and psychology are to go hand-in-hand in my research, I explored the Psychology and Counseling section of the database to look for similar trends regarding administrative support. I stumbled across an article that looked promising, “The Therapist’s own Psychotherapy.” It is argued that therapists— and those who work in psychology in general—undergo high levels of emotional stress themselves. Dealing with the mentally ill every day has a great deal of impact upon a person’s life. Certain cases seem to stick with the practitioner. As I read through the article, I thought back to my conversation with Dr. Seay. When she said “[…] he was explaining to me the reactions of his victims when he shot them,” she was noticeably unnerved.
Norecross, an expert on the personal therapy of mental health professionals, explains that the professional training therapists go through is usually “arid and rigid.” This makes it very difficult to humanize the occupation, let alone deal with personal side effects of the often times morose atmosphere (Norecross, pg 841). It needs to be understood that in order for a psychologist to conduct themselves sanely in an insane field, they must be regularly evaluated themselves. There is a societal stigma toward the idea that someone who deals with the public’s mental health on a daily basis may not always be completely stable themselves, but as my research has found, this stigma is incorrect and needs to be reversed.
Keeping the two interviews and data base findings in mind, I pushed forward to my site visits, the first of which was to a class session in the Criminal Justice Department. For an hour and a half I strained to collect sensory details from the back row of the class. I kept looking for a sudden epiphany into the world of law enforcement to pop out in front of me, but I admit that the whole experience was rather dry. The professor was low-toned and disengaged, and half the class was either asleep or absent. I attempted to engage the situation myself by asking follow-up questions involving protocol for particularly violent situations.
He would politely tell me that my question was excellent, and then proceed to avoid answering it and move along on his PowerPoint. As I left the classroom, frustrated and underwhelmed, a new thought struck me. This site visit wasn’t a waste because I had related the absence of understanding back to my interview with Brenda Glasgow. She had made it clear that those who are not submerged in the environment of the law enforcer, those who aren’t on the street and directly in the line of fire, have no way of understanding what it is really like. Sitting in the classroom it was clear to see that this professor had been schooled in the areas of law enforcement, but knew nothing outside academia.
I then gained permission to tour the Texas State University Police Department. I was buzzed into the Chief ’s office and told I could sit down and observe my surroundings as he completed some paperwork. The officer was a friendly man, but it was obvious that he was tired, overworked, and not in the easiest state of mind. I did my best not to look too nosy as I eyeballed his desk and the decorations on the wall behind him. We made polite conversation about my research goals as he lethargically typed away at his desktop. Behind him he had pictures of his children, the center of his decorations. Above that, he had a shelf of thank-you cards, birthday cards, old football helmets, and other memorabilia. What stood out most though, were the pictures of his children. When I brought them to attention he chuckled and said that he had many more but made the decision not put them up. He did not immediately explain why until I pressed for more information.
What he said next made me even further appreciate what a grim environment police officers work within. He shifted in his seat, “Sometimes some bad people come in here for questioning, and they see that I have kids and they use that to make me feel uneasy, or unsafe. They say lewd comments; I don’t wanna put up with that. I wish I didn’t have to take ‘em down.” His family was clearly his support system and something that took mind off his work. However, he had to deal with a grim reality at work, which hindered his familial coping style. This prompted me to probe for more information to see if he, like Dr. Seay and Brenda Glasgow, needed to use compartmentalization to get through the day. I asked him if it’s difficult to not take work home with him. He immediately said no, there was no question about it. He lamented that “a job is a job” and that was all he could allow it to be, otherwise he might get too bogged down. He coached his children’s baseball teams when he was not a police officer, this was his most loved activity out of anything.
As we were discussing his children I asked him why he had so much paperwork shuffled about. He explained that the department had lost four men to higher paying jobs and were scrambling to re-staff. He made mention that re-hiring was going to be tricky, considering nobody was exactly clamoring for police work due to negative media portrayal. Recruitment of police officers was becoming increasingly impossible because it had become a thankless job. “Oh well…” the officer mused, “my family appreciates me at least.”
This seeming absentminded comment by the officer brought a satisfying conclusion to my findings. He had demonstrated that he does combat two significant stressors—low public support and exposure to a morose environment—but has two forces of support, his family and compartmentalization. The pattern he exhibited of using two coping mechanisms to combat two stressors was evident in my database research, in those I interviewed, and, finally, in this site visit. I became confident as I left the station that I had reached a resolution.
Conclusion
It would appear from this semester-long study of law enforcers and psychologists that in order to stay atop the pedestal society puts them on, there are four forces they work with. These forces balance each other out with two being positive and two being negative. A loving family combats the lack of public support and intense scrutiny, while compartmentalization combats a harsh, miserable environment. The pedestal that these men and women balance themselves on every day is a product of societal misunderstanding. As I mentioned at the beginning of this paper, individuals in these occupations are in a heroic role and are seen an infallible, but in reality they are average human beings like the rest of the world. As Brenda Glasgow, Dr. Seay and the visit to the Texas State University Police Department made clear, their day-to-day lives are a continuous series of coping exercises.
The disparity between reality and societal perception was also evident in the Criminal Justice classroom. Since both psychology and law enforcement exhibited the same stressors and coping skills, I believe that the Criminal Justice classroom spoke for both occupations, but the general public cannot fully understand the situation these officers and psychologists are put in unless they become completely submerged in it.
These findings provide for a better understanding of life on the pedestal. It is extremely important that the general public understands what life is like for the heroes doing these jobs. Without public empathy, the pedestal becomes increasingly more difficult to stay on top of with any amount of stability. I believe that though family and compartmentalization are extremely helpful, they can only do so much for these individuals until the pressure and constant negative pushback become too much to handle.
Bibliography
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