Post-Traumatic Stress

A few weeks after a traumatic event has occurred, anxiety and stress symptoms can return. The so-called post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS). Sometimes it can take several months or even years until the first symptom shows. PTSS is quite common among war veterans who return home after experiencing the horrors of war, and feel anger, grief or guilt, etc. Anyone who has experienced a traumatic event can have these symptoms. This means that it could happen to a guest or a crew member, even though the crew member has been trained to handle such emergencies.

In general, these are the symptoms of PTSS - severe anxiety and flashbacks. The symptoms can vary in intensity over time and be more intense when you are exposed to a stressful situation. What kind of symptoms one gets depends on the person. In most cases, the PTSS symptoms are divided into four categories:

To reduce the symptoms, those who experienced the incident need to meet again to talk about what happened. This is known as "defusing". If an external person, usually a psychologist, leads the talks, they are called a "debriefing".

For most shipping companies "defusing" and "debriefing" is mandatory after an incident, accident or near miss. A "defusing" should always be carried out by the parties involved as soon as possible. After a severe event, there is often an outside person present to help with a "debriefing".