CISD My opinion of critical incident stress management (CISD) has been impacted by my reading of Everly and Mitchell's article. Prior to reading the article, I was skeptical about the efficacy of CISD because of anecdotal information that I had heard which suggested that CISD not only was not helpful, but may actually exacerbate symptoms in first responders who have experienced traumas. I viewed it as a way for employers to cover their legal responsibility towards first responders and limit future liability for healthcare services, particularly mental health care services. Furthermore, I did not believe that I had ever experienced any type of CISD intervention, because I had not ever encountered it in an employment scenario. However, after reviewing the article, I came away with a different understanding of CISD. I even came to the realization that, when I was a child, I received a form of modified CISD. Taken together, my knew knowledge and my enhanced understanding of my own past have led me to change my opinion about CISD.

When I was in middle school, one of my classmates committed suicide. The school pulled in all available counselors from all of the other schools in the district and engaged in an intervention, beginning with the students identified by teachers and staff as being in the child's immediate...

I was in the second-level of friends; while the girl who committed suicide and I were not very close friends, we shared many close friends. In addition, the school had all of the students gather for a group discussion of the event, which, from my reading of the article is a significant part of the CISD (Everly & Mitchell, 2000).
In fact, I was not aware of how important the group component was to the CISD process, as I had oftentimes equated CISD with generic crisis intervention services. What I learned through the article is that CISD is a group-intervention post-crises. Moreover, it refers to a specific crises intervention. "CISD represents a highly structured form of group crises intervention and represents a discussion of the traumatic, or critical incident" (Everly & Mitchell, 2000). This discussion is not a free-form discussion, but a structured discussion with the goal of providing closure (Everly & Mitchell, 2000). Furthermore, when closure is not possible, then the thought is that the CISD can provide triage for those who are ailing and also serve as a gateway to further treatment by introducing people to intervention services in a broad setting.

There has been some criticism of CISD because of allegations that CISD can cause harm to…